He squinted up at her. Damn that wretched glow! ‘What do you mean?’
‘Draconus will not leave the battlefield. Or, rather, he will. Laid out cold upon a bier.’
‘Would that he fell by my hand,’ Sagander said, with a rough sigh, his hands once again curling into tight fists.
Syntara smiled. ‘By all means, historian, wade out into the charge of battle, and meet him with a blade. By hatred alone you should blaze with impenetrable armour. Fired with righteous zeal, how could your sword not swing sure and true? How could it not cleave asunder all who would stand in your way?’
His gaze fell from her. ‘I wage war with words,’ he said.
‘Yet it seems you fight every battle in its aftermath, historian, to accommodate a mind insufficiently quickened to repartee. Why, even that whore Renarr can disarm you with a flick of her wit.’
He flinched, and then scowled at the tiled floor. ‘That manner of cunning is a shallow thing, forged in a society of eager malice.’
‘School, you mean.’
‘Just so,’ he said, irritated by Syntara’s ebullience. She gloats. This makes her ugly, despite the penumbra of light, despite the natural beauty of her face, the burnishing of eternal youth offered by this infernal magic. A faith that blinded one to natural flaws made perfection a false conceit, one defying too careful an examination. It must eschew complexity, promising simplicity in its stead. He suspected it would prove popular indeed.
‘I give you leave to spit upon his corpse,’ Syntara said. ‘If such a thing pleases you.’
‘That is one procession I will gladly join,’ he replied.
* * *
The day was nearing its end and from the keep’s tower came faint wailing as the priestesses announced the dying of Light with ritual grief. Captain Infayen Menand supposed it a proper gesture, even if the voices sounded strained and false. But this was as much effort as she was prepared to make in contemplating the myriad complexities of faith, since her attention was fixed upon the distant figure of Hunn Raal, as the Mortal Sword made his solitary way down into the town of Neret Sorr.
Beside her stood Tathe Lorat, while behind them both, soldiers worked into the dusk, preparing for the march. The air was bitter cold with a wind sweeping down from the plains of the north, and it was likely that they would ride that wind all the way to the gates of Kharkanas.
‘Frozen ground,’ she said. ‘Solid underfoot, until the hot blood turns it all to mud.’
‘The glow of white fades,’ Tathe Lorat replied, ‘with every doubt stirring awake in the mind. I yearn to discover a sorcery for myself, if only to lend the illusion of loyalty.’
‘So do we all,’ Infayen said with a grunt. ‘I dislike a faith that knows the mind.’
‘Then we are little different,’ Tathe replied. ‘Hunn Raal—’
‘Is dangerous,’ cut in Infayen. ‘When he’s not spilling his cock into the fire, that is.’
‘I felt his ire, Infayen. I felt its capriciousness. Careless, deadly. He could have broken every bone in my body, all for the crime of insolence.’
‘And the man less a captain with every day that passes.’
‘My appetites never weakened discipline.’
Infayen glanced across at her. ‘It was well known that you played no favourites, Tathe Lorat. If you could make it wet or hard, you’d have it to bed.’
‘When I have title, and wealth, I will take a score or more lovers. I’ll fuck every Houseblade I hire. To ensure their absolute loyalty.’
‘That’s one way, I suppose. What of your husband?’
‘What of him? The man can’t even track down a lone renegade captain. He’ll return here to Neret Sorr, tail between his scrawny legs, only to find us long gone. No, what we must win for ourselves will have to be by my hand, not his, and that’s a debt from which he’ll never recover.’
‘Your esteem is a miserly thing, Tathe Lorat.’
‘I’ve not your hero’s blood, Infayen, to give clout to my claims.’
Infayen watched as Hunn Raal slipped from sight, down between ramshackle buildings. ‘He’s not making for the keep.’
‘No.’