Goedellin was watching her, pursing his dark-tinted lips. It seemed that he expected some kind of response.
“I understand this,” Wain said. “I accepted it long ago.”
“The creed rules your heart, and your mind?” Goedellin asked her. “Unreservedly? Certainly?”
“It does,” she replied without hesitation.
Goedellin nodded: a gentle, kindly gesture. “And this na’kyrim? Is he a true adherent of the creed?”
Wain’s hesitation was fleeting, but she saw in Goedellin’s eyes that he noted it. “I believe he is,” she said. She knew it sounded defensive. “I am not certain.”
Again, Goedellin nodded. “You do well not to claim certainty. There’s none of us, save the Last God himself, who can see into a heart and take the true measure of its devotion.”
A sound outside caught his attention. He rose crookedly to his feet, and went with small, careful steps to the window. He beckoned Wain with a gnarled finger. Looking out, she saw twenty or thirty young children clustered in the yard. Many were crying, others were sullen and silent and fearful. Several shivered, clothed in thin garments that were no match for the wintry air. Battle Inkallim shepherded them across the cobblestones.
“A small part of the harvest,” Goedellin murmured.
One of the children — a little girl — was jostled from behind and fell, cracking her knees. She wailed. One of the ravens reached down with a single hand and lifted her bodily to her feet, pushed her back in amongst the crowd of waifs.
“You’re sending them north?” Wain asked.
“Of course. There is nothing for them here. Those that survive will be Children of the Hundred, one day. We do them a great service, though they may not know it for some time. And there will be losses to be made good. There will be gaps in the rank of the Battle to be filled before all this is done.”
“You do mean to see this war fought, then,” Wain murmured. “To its conclusion. Whatever that may be.”
Goedellin shuffled back towards his chair. “We have three thousand of the Battle here. Such a force does not march lightly. They will not be returning to Kan Dredar until they have tested themselves fully against the Haig Bloods, and against fate.”
Wain returned to her own seat.
“Your devotion to the creed is well known, of course,” the Inkallim said as he settled back down. “My earlier question was not born of any doubt. How stands your brother in this regard? Do the fires of the faith burn as brightly in the new Thane of the Horin-Gyre Blood as they do in you? As they did in your father?”
“They do.” Wain might have said no more than that, but her mind was caught up in this strange fancy that she was a child again, and Goedellin one of those old tutors who had so impressed her. Their wisdom, their sere gravity, had always compelled her to speak honestly. “Perhaps it takes more… effort on his part to hold firm to the creed. But he does hold firm.”
“Do you understand why I make these enquiries, and ponder these matters?”
“I would not question the Lore’s right to enquire as it sees fit in matters of the faith.”
“No. I imagine you would not. Still, this is not solely a matter of the faith. The Lore, the Battle, the Hunt: all the Children of the Hundred are now engaged in this struggle that your Blood began. We are committed, to some extent. We will incur loss. We face risks, in terms of our standing, our relationship with the other Bloods. With Thanes.”
“Your support for my Blood is a great gift. I — and my brother — know it.”
“Well, there is the nub of things. Our support is for your Blood only insofar as it serves the larger purpose of supporting, of strengthening, the creed. So long as this war, and the survival of your Blood, offers some possibility of advancing the cause and the dominion of the Black Road, we Inkallim have little choice but to test the limitations that fate might set upon that advance.” Goedellin glanced up from his hunched position, scouring Wain’s face for some sign. “Do you think survival is too strong a word to use, perhaps?”
Outside, in the yard, a baby was crying now. It was a piercing sound, distracting. Wain hesitated. “I do not know. We have spent most of my Blood’s fighting strength here. But it does not matter, in the end. If my Blood is fated to pass into extinction, so it must be. I know…” She faltered, fearful now that she might say the wrong thing. Yet the Inkallim’s steady gaze struck her as more reassuring than threatening. “I know, or think I know, that our success has won us little affection from the Gyre Blood. The reasons why that should be so are obscure to me.”
Goedellin grunted and lowered his eyes. “Our High Thane excels in matters of obscurity. Well. Your Blood will survive, if fate smiles upon us. Your brother might have made the shaping of such a smile a little easier, had he left an heir behind him, safe in your mother’s care at Hakkan. No matter. We — the Inkallim — will stand shoulder to shoulder with you. For so long as it seems that such unity serves the cause of the Black Road, of course. Do you understand yet the import of what I said about choice? Its illusory nature?”
“I am not sure I do.”
“There is little more to it than this: whatever choices we make — you about your na’kyrim, we Inkallim about the movement of armies — are predestined, their outcome already inscribed upon the pages of the Hooded God’s book. The significance of any decision is not, therefore, in the decision itself, but in the thought that underlies it. The posture, if you like, of the mind that makes it. The correct posture is one that gives primacy to the advancement of the creed, and willingly accepts whatever consequences may flow from adhering to that principle.”
“I understand that,” Wain said, nodding. Goedellin was not looking at her, and could not see the gesture.
“Very well. The Firsts concluded that committing the strength of the Inkalls to this struggle offered at least the possibility of firming the Black Road’s grip upon the world. Whether it does so or not, we will all live — or die — with the consequences of that commitment. We need ask ourselves only one question about this na’kyrim that so unsettles Fiallic, and so offends the noble Eagle. Can he serve the creed? Does he offer the possibility of advancing our cause?”
“Yes,” Wain said, and then, with greater certainty, “Yes.”
Goedellin looked up at her and smiled blackly.
“Well, then,” he said.
“Temegrin will not be happy. He wants Aeglyss dead.”
“So Fiallic told me. No matter. The Eagle is timid. Those whose answer to the Black Road is timidity seldom prosper. You keep the halfbreed at your side. We will do what we can to dissuade Temegrin, and others if needed, from intemperate action.”
Wain nodded. Goedellin coughed and hung his head, so that she could no longer see his eyes, or those stained lips.
“Go,” the Inkallim muttered. “Take yourself back to Glasbridge, and your brother’s side. The army is already starting to move. Our greatest victory in more than a century is mere days away. If fate favours us.”
Wain gathered the few warriors of her Blood who remained in the city on the main square. She had them lay out their weapons and chain mail and shields on the ground. She and her Shield walked up and down the meagre ranks, heads down, eyes searching for any flaw. Wain found a mail shirt with broken links. She struck the man who owned it on the chest, staggering him a little.
“You’re done here,” she said as she walked. “We’re done with this city. The newcomers can have it: Gyre, or the Battle, or the thousands who follow them. The battle’s to the south now, and so is your Thane, so that’s where we’ll take ourselves. To Glasbridge. That’s where your Blood makes its stand.”
She kicked a battered shield with the toe of her boot. It skittered away over the cobbles.