Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) (83 page)

‘But sir, we are speaking of the bride of Lord Andarist.’

Cryl looked down at the corporal, bemused.

Rees had pulled off his helm, running a hand through his sparse hair. ‘Sorry, sir. It’s just … I have friends in the Legion. Dear friends. Men and women I fought alongside. What you’re saying – none of them I know would ever agree to that. You’re describing a crime. Raw murder. Lord Urusander would be the first to hunt down the killers and hang them all.’

‘Renegades,’ said Cryl. ‘Bandits, even, or perhaps the blame will be laid upon the Deniers. If proper signs are left behind. Abyss knows, they could even implicate Draconus. Deceit is their weapon, and every act of murder and chaos will simply impress upon everyone the need for more order – the need for the Legion’s return.’

‘They would not do that,’ Rees whispered.

‘They need to strike quickly,’ Cryl went on, ‘before those coming up from Kharkanas reach the wedding camp. Don’t you understand, Rees? Strike the brothers to anger – no, to blind rage – and by whose hand will this civil war be unleashed?’ He gathered up his reins. ‘Mount up. We ride to the estate, and there I will hand you over to the castellan.’

‘And you, sir?’

‘A fresh horse. No, two. I will ride through the night – Sergeant Agalas should have caught up with us. Something has happened to them. If the attackers wait for dawn, I should reach Lord Jaen in time—’

‘Sir, don’t you think they’d have watchers on the road?’

‘If I take the other side of the river, there is a ford—’

‘I know the one, sir, but the river is high – no one dares it and for good reason.’

‘Which is why they’ll post no watchers upon it.’

‘Sir, you should not go alone.’

‘Corporal, it may be that Lord Jaen is right and indeed that I am completely wrong. You need to ready yourselves. Explain it all to Castellan Delaran.’

‘Yes sir.’

They swung their weary horses round and set off down the hill.

* * *

The night sky was clear and the swirl of stars bright overhead when Narad dismounted with the others in Bursa’s troop. Awaiting them in a glade was another troop of Legion soldiers, although none wore uniforms. From this unlit camp an officer strode out to meet them.

She was tall, well shaped, yet she moved in a loose way, dissolute,
and
Narad wondered if she was drunk. But when she spoke, her words were sharp and precise.

‘Corporal Bursa, what news do you bring me?’

‘Small troubles only, sir. Taken care of on the road. But we can be certain that no reinforcements from the north will reach them in time. Has Captain Scara Bandaris responded to the rider I sent?’

‘I intercepted your messenger, I’m afraid.’

‘Sir?’

‘Too great a risk, corporal. I deemed it more prudent that no Legion soldier ride to Kharkanas. I understand that you wish for confirmation of your orders. That you feel troubled by events, but you may take the word of Infayen Menand that all we do here is necessary. These first acts, each one but a small letting of blood, are intended to prevent more bloodshed later.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Now, divest yourselves of all Legion attire. There is spare clothing awaiting you.’

Narad had stood close enough, among his comrades, to hear this exchange. He assumed that the officer was this Infayen Menand, although he could not be sure. When Bursa turned back to them, however, Narad could see, even in the darkness, his troubled mien.

‘You heard the lieutenant, then,’ he said to them. ‘Head over to that heap of clothing and be quick about it. Once changed, you can try to get some sleep. We’ll be back on the move, on foot, well before dawn. Supper’s cold tonight. Go on, all of you.’

Narad joined the others in making his way to the spare clothing. When he began picking through it, he felt sticky blood stains on some items.

‘Denier shit,’ the woman beside him muttered. ‘In case any of us get cut down.’

‘We get left behind?’ Narad asked.

‘That’s the way of it, Waft.’

Narad didn’t much like the nickname they’d given him, but he knew enough to not complain, which would only make it worse.
Just another lie
.

The woman shot him a look. ‘You say something?’

‘No.’

‘Glad for that,’ she snapped under her breath, shaking out a tunic and holding it up. ‘Spent four years going hungry after getting discharged. Four nobleborn boys once caught me worse for wear on a country road. Said I stank and damned near drowned me giving me a bath in the river. They laughed and pawed me and left me lying naked in the mud. I risked my life to see them safe and that was what they did to me? It wasn’t right, and now they’re going to pay.’

Narad stared at her. Others had paused to listen, but he suspected that they’d all heard the tale before. They probably had their own. Lists of wrongs could bind tighter than blood.
And I got my face ruined by a Legion veteran, so go to the Abyss all of you
. He stood studying a shirt he’d pulled out, and then dropped it. ‘Just realized I don’t need anything from here, since I ain’t wearing any uniform.’

She snorted a laugh. ‘Lucky you. Go get some sleep, Waft. Killing comes with the dawn.’

* * *

They were camped in the clearing in front of the new Great House of Andarist, which stood silent, unoccupied but ready. In the darkness, with the Houseblades ranged out to form a protective circle, Enesdia was at last permitted to climb out from the carriage. She was swathed in a thick robe and hooded and the weight of this covering pulled at her.

It was late and her father stood alone by the fire, his eyes upon the huge edifice of the Great House. She moved up alongside him, feeling strangely hollow, almost frightened by what would come in the days ahead.

‘A fine home awaits you,’ Lord Jaen said, reaching out to take her hand.

She felt the warmth of that grip and found strength in it, but also a painful longing. She would leave his side, and everything would change between them. All at once, Enesdia yearned for her life left behind. She wanted to wear the rough clothes of her childhood, and run laughing with Cryl in heated pursuit, the stains of the soft fruit she’d thrown at him all down the front of his new tunic. She wanted to feel the heat of the sun in its younger days, when it never blinked behind a single cloud, and the air smelled of freedom in ways she’d never fully grasped back then, and now would never know again.

‘I am sorry I sent him away,’ her father said then.

He had told her of his fears for his home, but she thought them unwarranted. They were highborn, and to strike at them would be seen – by Andarist, and by Anomander and Silchas – as an act of war. The Legion would not dare that, for they would risk losing all favour in the realm, beginning with that of Mother Dark herself. In truth, she believed her father was being dishonest with her, even if it was with her best interests in mind.

‘It is probably better this way,’ she said, using the words to push down the hurt she was feeling, this wretched sense of abandonment – when she had needed Cryl the most. ‘He was not happy. Hasn’t been for weeks, maybe even months.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s understandable.’

‘No it isn’t,’ she retorted.

‘Beloved daughter—’

‘Why can’t he be happy for me? If it was the other way around, I’d be happy for him!’

‘Would you? Truly?’

‘Of course I would. Love is such a precious gift, how could I not?’

Her father said nothing.

After a time, she frowned, reconsidering his silence. ‘It’s just selfish,’ she concluded. ‘He’s as good as my brother, and no brother would be unhappy for me.’

‘True, no brother would. But then, Cryl is not your brother, Enesdia.’

‘I know that. But that’s not the point.’

‘I’m afraid that it is.’

‘I’m not dense, Father. I know what you’re implying, but it isn’t true. Cryl can’t love me that way – he knows me too well.’

Jaen coughed – but no, not a cough. Laughter.

His reaction should have angered her, but it did not. ‘You think I don’t comprehend my own vanity? The shallowness of my thoughts?’

‘Daughter, if you comprehend such things, then your thoughts are anything but shallow.’

She waved the objection away. ‘Who is the least of the brothers of the Purake?’ she asked. ‘Who among them lacks ambition? Who is the first to smile for no reason?’

‘He smiles because he is in love, daughter.’

‘Before me, I mean. When I first saw him, he was smiling.’

‘His love is for life itself, Enesdia. This is his gift to the world, and I would never consider it of less value than those offered up by his brothers.’

‘Oh, that wasn’t what I meant. Not really. Never mind. It’s too late and I’m tired and overwrought. But I will never forgive Cryl for not being here.’

‘Unfair. I was the one who sent him back.’

‘I doubt he argued overmuch.’

‘On the contrary, he did.’

‘But he went anyway.’

‘Yes, because he would not disobey me. But I think I understand now. All of this. You are punishing him, and you wanted him to see it. So, in your mind, Enesdia, Cryl must have hurt you somehow. But the only way I can think he could have done that leads me to a place where I should not be – not now, only days from your wedding.’

Despite her robes, Enesdia felt herself grow cold. ‘Don’t say that,’ she whispered.

‘Do you love Andarist?’

‘Of course I do! How could I not?’

‘Enesdia.’ He faced her, took hold of her shoulders. ‘To say that I do not value the gift that Andarist possesses, by his very nature, could not be more wrong. I value it above most other qualities among a man or a woman. Because it is so rare.’

‘Did Mother have it? That gift?’

He blinked down at her, and then shook his head. ‘No. But I am glad for that, for otherwise her loss would be impossible for me to bear. Enesdia, speak truth to me here and now. If you do not love him enough, your marriage to him will destroy his gift. It may take decades, or centuries, but you will destroy him. Because you do not love him enough.’

‘Father—’

‘When one loves all things of the world, when one has that gift of joy, it is not the armour against grief that you might think it to be. Such a person stands balanced on the edge of sadness – there is no other way for it, because to love as he does is to see clearly.
Clearly
. Andarist smiles in the understanding that sadness stalks him, step by step, moment by moment. If you wound him – a thousand small wounds of disregard or indifference – until he stumbles and weakens, sorrow will find him and cut through to his heart.’

‘I do love him,’ she said. ‘More than enough, more than any one man needs. This I swear.’

‘We will return home upon the dawn, daughter, and weather all that comes.’

‘If we do that, Father, then I wound him when he is at his most vulnerable. If we do that, I destroy his gift, and his life.’

He studied her, and she saw in his eyes that he knew the truth of her words. That it was already too late.

‘Cryl did the honourable thing, Enesdia.’

‘I know,’ she replied. ‘But I wish he hadn’t!’ These last words came in a welter of tears and she fell against him.

Her father drew her into a tight embrace. ‘I should have acted,’ he said, his voice gruff, almost broken. ‘I should have said something—’

But she shook her head. ‘No, I’m the fool. I have always been the fool – I showed him that often enough.’

She wept then, as there was nothing more for either of them to say.

There was no sense in the world, she decided, much later when she lay sleepless under furs in the carriage. No sense at all. It had surrendered to the facile creatures like her, gliding through life in a glowing penumbra of petty self-obsession, where every unclear comment was a slight, and every slight personal, and spite and malice bred like vermin, in whispers and hidden glances.
That is my world, where everything close to me is bigger than it really is. But the truth is, I know no other way to live
.

She would never let Andarist doubt her, never give cause to hurt. Only in imagination would she free herself to betray, and dream of a son of the Durav in her arms, and the face of a young man who knew her too well.

* * *

Narad dreamed of women. Beautiful women who turned away from him in revulsion, in disgust. They were crowding close on all sides, and each recoil jostled him. He struggled to hide his face, but it seemed as if his hands were not his own, and that they were helpless in their efforts to find what he sought to hide.

He had not been born with much. He could not recall once basking in the admiring regard of a woman. There was no point in counting all the whores, since they were paid to look pleased; besides, they never held his gaze for very long. Desire was a thing no eye could fake, and its absence was plain enough to unman the boldest man.