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‘Legion soldiers, sir. They were drunk, but they took orders and things. There was a sergeant. They thought I was dead, but I wasn’t. They were going to burn us all in the house, but I got me and Jinia out.’
‘Lady Nerys is dead, then.’
Wreneck nodded. ‘But Orfantal had already been sent away, and Sandalath, too. There was just the three of us left, but I wasn’t let in the house, and the barn burned down and she didn’t really want me any more anyway.’
Lord Anomander continued studying him. ‘And Sandalath … if I recall, she is now a hostage in Dracons Keep.’
Wreneck couldn’t remember if that was true, but he nodded. ‘And that’s where you’re taking me, isn’t it?’
‘A quiet listener, this one,’ said Caladan as he set a battered pot upon the embers.
‘Good men are,’ said Wreneck. ‘It’s only little boys who are too loud, getting whipped for it as is proper.’
Neither the First Son nor the Azathanai replied to this.
After a time, Wreneck sat up, and Caladan Brood brought to him a bowl of broth. Wreneck held it in both hands and felt how the heat seeped through to his fingers. The sensation was painful, but he welcomed it nonetheless.
Then Lord Anomander spoke. ‘It may comfort you to know that Orfantal is safe, in the Citadel.’
Wreneck glanced over, and then frowned down at the bowl and its steaming broth. ‘She said I sullied him. We had to stop being friends.’
‘Sandalath?’
‘No. Lady Nerys.’
‘Who was free with her cane.’
‘Me and Jinia had to know our place.’
‘Would you rather,’ Lord Anomander said, ‘that I did not d
eliver you to Dracons Keep? I recall Sandalath, from her time in the Citadel. She was clever, and seemed kindly enough, but time will change people.’
‘She liked it that Orfantal had someone to play with, but it was wrong. Lady Nerys explained it.’ Wreneck sipped at the broth. He had never tasted anything better. ‘I can’t stay long at Dracons Keep, even if Sandalath wants me there. I have bad men to kill.’
‘This,’ said Caladan Brood, ‘proves a most cruel conscience.’
‘Go slowly with that broth,’ Lord Anomander said. ‘Tell me your name.’
‘Wreneck.’
‘Have you brothers or sisters?’
‘No.’
‘Your parents?’
‘Just my ma. The man who made me with her was with the army. He also made horseshoes and other stuff, but he died to a horse-kick. I don’t remember him, but Ma says I’m going to be big, like he was. She sees it in my bones.’
‘You’ll not return to her?’
‘Not until I kill the ones who hurt Jinia. Then I’ll come back. I’ll find Jinia in the village and we’ll get married. She says she can’t have children, not any more, after what they did, but that doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter if Ma doesn’t like her either, because of how she’s been used and all. I’ll marry Jinia, and protect her for ever.’
Lord Anomander was no longer looking down at Wreneck. He was instead looking across at Caladan Brood. He said, ‘And so I now raise my standard, Azathanai, to a deserved future, and a conscience scrubbed clean. If not in the name of love, then what cause suffices?’
‘Draconus would stand with you, First Son, beneath such a standard. And thus the nobles are lost.’
Lord Anomander turned away, studied the barren trees with their scorched trunks that surrounded the glade. ‘Are we then past the age of shame, Caladan? No sting should I ridicule my fellow highborn?’
