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‘When it costs nothing.’
‘It pleases me that we do understand one another, Lady Aegis.’
Sukul listened to them leave, waited a few moments, and then rose from the chest. The game of betrayal was indeed a subtle one, when it came to adults and their ways. And yet, a child’s glee remained, swirling beneath the surface. Recognizing this came to Sukul as something of a shock. Boys and girls in the end after all. Here I believed politics to be something lofty, clever and sharp with wit. But it is nothing like that.
Desire is venal. Needs give way to hunger, fostering the illusion of starvation – as Gallan has said – and the world becomes a pit of wolves. ‘In the cruel game of politics, we are brought low by the child within each of us, until every howl is deafening in its abject stupidity, and none can hear the wails of the suffering.’
She felt sick to her stomach. In need of another goblet brimming with wine.
Restlessness, let me dull thy sting.
* * *
Rancept’s breathing wheezed noisily in the steamy confines of the kitchen. The cook had driven his cast of helpers into the scullery and from within that side chamber with its vast iron sinks came the clash of pots, plates and cutlery, leaving the castellan and his two informal guests alone at the carving table. Sekarrow wore the livery of a Houseblade of House Drethdenan, although her long fingers and delicate hands were clearly better suited to the four-stringed iltre she idly plucked than to the plain sword at her belt. There was a delicacy about her that most men would find endearing, and her eyes were large and luminous, set within a childlike face. Her brother, Horult Chiv, made for a stark contrast, with his face of sharp angles and his frame robust and stolid, and the hands he rested upon the tabletop were broad, battered and blunt. Horult was captain of the same Houseblades, and also Drethdenan’s long-time lover. Such a union could of course produce no heirs, but in all other manner the two men were indeed married and seen as such.
In his long years of life, Rancept had had occasion to reflect on the wondrous variability of love, as might anyone left standing on its periphery, too bent and battered to draw another’s eye. He was no sceptic in his observation of tenderness, but the longing in his soul did not incline him to bitterness. Some were destined to walk alone through life, others not. Drethdenan’s adoration of Horult Chiv delivered a kind of balm to all who witnessed it.
The nobles were gathering in the dining hall, and while Horult might well have elected to sit beside Lord Drethdenan, as was the right of any spouse, instead he appeared in the company of his sister, joining Rancept where he sat finishing his meal.
Horult Chiv’s demeanour suggested some measure of unease, if not frustration, but as Rancept knew neither of these two people well he remained silent, wiping up the last of the stew’s gravy with a piece of bread, pausing regularly in his chewing to draw a breath or two.
Finally, Sekarrow dropped her fingers from the strings and settled the instrument into her lap as she leaned back in the chair. Eyeing her brother, she said, ‘Caution is not a flaw.’
Horult rapped the tabletop with his knuckles, a sharp sound that made Rancept jump. ‘It has its place, I grant you. But not in this matter.’
‘He fears what he might lose,’ she said.
‘So much that what he fears may well come to pass.’
Her thin brows lifted. ‘He will lose you?’
Horult started, and then glanced away. ‘No. Of course not. We have had disagreements before.’
‘You mistake my meaning, brother.’
‘In what manner?’
Sighing, Sekarrow looked across to Rancept. ‘Castellan, I beg you, indulge my dimwitted sibling with an explanation.’
Grunting, Rancept said, ‘Not for me to intrude, unless invited.’
Leaning forward, Horult gestured. ‘Consider it done. Tell me, what so dims my wits that I comprehend nothing of my sister’s warning?’
‘You command his Houseblades, sir. On a field of battle, soldiers die. Officers die.’
The knuckles rapped again, hard enough to momentarily silence the dishwashers in the other room. ‘That is … selfish. What value this presumption of responsibility when the first threat sees it shy away? I am a soldier. That entails risks. We are in a civil war. A pretender seeks to claim a throne.’
‘Not entirely accurate,’ Sekarrow murmured, returning to tuning her iltre. ‘He but seeks a second throne, to stand beside the first, and of the two, at least his would be seen. I have heard tell that no vision proves keen enough to pierce the veil of darkness our beloved Mother now wraps about herself. Indeed, some say she is now nothing more than darkness manifest, a thing of absences so profound as to give the illusion of presence.’
‘Poets can play games with such notions all they like,’ Horult retorted. ‘One throne, two thrones, it matters not one whit. I dream of the day when pedantry ceases to be.’
Smiling, Sekarrow said, ‘And I dream of the day it is no longer necessary. Precision of language is to be valued. Don’t you agree, castellan? How many wars and tragedies might we have avoided if meanings were not only clear, but agreed upon? In fact, I would hazard the suggestion that language lies at the root of all conflict. Misapprehension as the prelude to violence.’
Rancept pushed the plate away and settled back, collecting up his tankard of weak ale. ‘The buck dragged down by wolves might disagree.’
‘Hah!’ snorted Horult Chiv.
But Sekarrow shook her head. ‘There is necessity in hunger, of which we do not speak here, castellan. Nothing of hunter or prey, at least not in the simplest sense of their meaning. Instead, we take such natural inclinations and twist them into our more civil state of being. The enemy to our way of thinking becomes the prey, assuming it is too weak to claim any other title, and we the hunter. But such words themselves, “hunter” and “prey”, seek a kind of synonymy with nature, when the reality is in fact one of murder.’ She brushed at her uniform’s leather shoulder-guards. ‘Murder is then obscured behind a cascade of words intended to deflect that brutal truth. War, soldiers, battles – the mere vocabulary of our existence, as commonplace as breathing, or eating and drinking. And, of course, as necessary.’ She twisted a peg and then strummed the strings, making a discordant clash of notes. ‘Uniforms, training, discipline. Honour, duty, courage. Principles, integrity, revenge. To obscure is to empower the lie.’
