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‘I beg you, sir, no more of that.’ Your words torment me.
‘This day too bright? All things in stark detail, a focus so sharp as to cut the mind? No matter, come the night I will fold you in, yet again, like a lost child. I was speaking of Urusander’s Legion. And Hunn Raal, whom I should despise, but do not.’
He thought about that, and then shrugged. ‘He is truly of the Issgin line, sir, a betrayer, a poisoner – if not hate, then what?’
‘Yes, the Issgin line. Possessing a well-matched claim to the throne, only to lose the bloody struggle. By virtue of failure, they are now condemned, tarred, vilified as the quintessential villains. Do not let our perpetual reinvention of the past deceive you, captain.’
He shrugged. ‘Then is this pity that you feel?’
‘Consider well my warning. We can make no claim to righteous vengeance. These prisoners now wearing the Hust, they have no anger to mine, no ruinous rubble to crush down with fury. You may well seek to bleed down upon them all, and so stain them alike, but such a desire will fail, captain.’
He said nothing to that, as she had touched upon his own fear. There was no cause for this new Hust Legion. In manner, they are mercenaries who have already been paid, with all the suspect loyalty such an error in judgement entails.
‘Hunn Raal and his ilk seek stature and wealth,’ said Toras Redone. ‘A redistribution of power. The highborn of the Greater and Lesser Houses deem the table crowded enough. So, we now have a war.’
‘There is also the matter of Urusander, and the High Priestess Syntara—’
‘Temple squabbles, and worse yet, captain, some hoary remnant of misplaced notions on monarchy, when our queen has long since left us to become a goddess, making the whole debate a charade. But let them elevate Urusander into godhood, a Father Light for Mother Dark. Do you see the assumption yet?’
‘I’m afraid I do not, sir.’
‘It is this atavistic absurdity, this clinging to kings and queens who must be bound in matrimony, as the putative parents of Kurald Galain. Captain, listen to this drunken whore here, when she tells you that there can be a Father Light and a Mother Dark without the former having to jam his cock into the latter’s cunt. More to the point, a god and a goddess need not be married to rule us. Let her keep her lover. Let him fuck his scrolls. What of it?’
He stared at her, speechless.
She tilted her hood back, showed him her sallow, puffy face. The ebon hue was fading, like a failing of convictions. Her smile was broken. ‘But they’ll not listen to me, captain. It’s gone too far. The highborn will see Draconus taken down. The priestesses will see their victims wed. Hunn Raal will see the power of the nobles broken, and his own lackeys in their place.’
‘Sir, Lord Anomander—’
‘Is a man. Of honour and integrity. Mother Dark commands him to keep sheathed his sword. He thinks this a denial. A refusal of all that he is. He sees no other path, comprehends nothing of her meaning.’
‘Then, by the Abyss, Toras, someone should tell him! No! She should! Mother Dark!’
‘She has, from the arms of her lover.’
‘Too subtle!’
She laughed. ‘Too subtle by far, Galar Baras. Should have left this all to us women with lovers, yes? We are the ones who trampled the barriers, the sacred agreements, snapped the chains constraining our sordid appetites. We see outside the strictures – look at you, Galar Baras. We could ride to the very edge of the Hust camp, only to have me drag you from your saddle and fuck you blind, witnessed by all, and you could not stop me. Could you?’
‘There is virtue in being brazen, Toras? What of your husband?’
‘Yes, the humiliation of being so publicly cuckolded, and there we lay bare the heart of everything.’
‘How?’
She drew her hood up again, reaching down for her flask, from which she drank, long and deeply, before saying, ‘Men. It’s all about saving face. Every argument, every duel, every battle, every war. You would level a world to keep from being made to look a fool. And so you shall.’
‘I will speak to Lord Anomander. Your solution is simple yet elegant. Indeed, as you say, it is wholly natural. Urusander seeks no wife. Mother Dark seeks no husband, yet she has not once spoken against the notion of a god at her side. Lord Anomander will realize this.’
‘They’ll not let him.’
‘Sir?’
‘He is trapped. Utterly, irrevocably trapped. Mind you, so is Urusander. Chained and caged. The holders of the keys, darling, are the priestesses, and Hunn Raal. And, of course, the highborn. No,’ she said, after another mouthful from the flask, ‘there will be a battle. Many people must die – do you not feel it, captain? This clawing thirst?’
‘I feel, commander, fates converging, a maelstrom of deaths, all unnecessary, all a terrible waste.’
She grunted. ‘Better a whore on the throne. Or behind it.’
