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‘Not that I have heard,’ Ivis confessed, scratching at his beard and feeling icy crystals tangled in the whiskers. ‘In that way, milord, perhaps he is older than his years.’
‘Must it fall to the child to ask questions no adult dare ask?’
‘Possibly. If so, then the lad has missed his chance, and now thinks nothing of all that. He’s decided what he must do, and the vengeance he has avowed is anything but childlike. Some fated aspect of his nature has set him upon the path. He does not question it.’ Ivis paused, considering, and then he shrugged. ‘Perhaps he is something of a simpleton.’
‘It is truly a cynical world, Ivis, when we see stupidity and innocence as the same thing.’
‘Civil war makes cynics of us all, milord.’
‘Does it now?’ Anomander shifted slightly from where he leaned on the merlon, eyeing Ivis for a moment. ‘This hunger for change,’ he said. ‘It sets for itself a future in which every desire is appeased, each one won by sword, or blood, or an enemy brought to its knees. And at that instant, Ivis, so brightly painted in triumph, does the world freeze? Does time itself cease, nothing crawling on; not a single moment following in its usual tumble? But what world offers this impossibility? Only the one begat in a mind, and then raised in chains, never to be set free. The fashioning of nostalgia, my friend, imprisons us.’
‘Milord, did we not fight for our homeland? You, me, Draconus and all the others? Did we not fight to throw back invaders? Did we not win our freedom?’
‘We did. All those things we did, Ivis. Yet, has time stood still? From that moment of victory? Do you still see us all standing triumphant and flushed, as if trapped in one of Kadaspala’s paintings? Victory belongs on canvas, not in the real world. No, here, we move on. Urusander and his soldiers stumble from the field, to find tavern corners and bleak mornings. The nobles? Back to their estates, to frown at children grown into strangers, and wives or husbands with love gone cold.’ He shook his head again, turning back to the vista beyond the estate walls. ‘Still the echo chases us, and so we dream of making the moment eternal.’
‘I have heard, milord, that you refused Kadaspala’s request. For a portrait. And now, alas, it is too late.’
‘Too late? Why is that?’
‘Why, milord, because he is now blind.’
‘I would trust his hand more now than when he had eyes to see, Ivis. Yes, I believe I would accept his request. He is at last free to paint what he will, with no argument from the world beyond.’
‘I doubt he will approach you, milord.’
‘Agreed, but for reasons of which you may not be aware.’
‘Milord?’
‘He blames me, Ivis. For the rape and murder of his sister. For the death of his father.’
‘He is mad with grief.’
‘We tarried,’ Anomander said. ‘In no hurry to reach the place of the wedding.’
Ivis watched as Anomander reached down with one hand to rest it upon the pommel of the sword at his hip. ‘Had I named it Grief, perhaps … but in this, why, I stand with young Wreneck. Vengeance, I said, avowed with a child’s bright eyes, so sure, so unerring with fiery conviction. Since that day, Ivis, I cannot but wonder, have I made a mistake?’
‘You seek Andarist, milord. You seek your brother, to make it right.’
‘We will speak, yes. But what words will be exchanged? I do not know. By all rights, I should turn back now, to Kharkanas. If my brother will hold to his sense of betrayal, let him continue. Are there not greater matters at hand than one man’s grief?’
‘Or another’s vengeance?’ Even as he spoke, Ivis cursed himself for a fool.
But, surprisingly, Anomander replied with a bitter laugh and then said, ‘Well spoken, Ivis. I admitted to fear, did I not? But it is the fear that drives me in pursuit of Andarist. The fear of unknown words, not yet spoken, which I now race to answer … as if every moment of silence between us pulls another stone from the bridge one of us must cross.’
‘So, in your courage, milord, you are the one taking the steps.’
‘Is that courage now, Ivis?’
‘It is, sir. All too often cowardice wears the habit of wounded pride.’
Anomander was silent for some time, and then said, ‘There was a priest. I met him upon the road. As it turned out, we were both upon the same pilgrimage.’ He paused. ‘The estate house my brother built is now a shrine. As if horror and blood had the power to sanctify.’
‘I believe it to be so, milord,’ said Ivis, his gaze dropping to study the barrows edging the killing field.
‘I saw something,’ Anomander resumed. ‘When the priest appeared upon the threshold of the house, blood started from his hands, from wounds that opened fresh, though he took no blade to them. Blood is answered with blood. It seems that faith will be written in what we lose, my friend.’
Uneasy, Ivis shivered. ‘I grieve for that priest, milord. Surely, he would rather bless with something other than his own blood.’
