I could imagine the look on Markham’s face. It made me smile as I followed the curving walkway above the long pool. Despite recognizing the other voice.
“This unlawful, sacrilegious-one might even say blasphemous, were one of a more judgmental temper than my poor self-insistence of yours could, within the bounds of reasonable possibility, lead a Knight of suspicious nature to wonder if there might be something, above in the Purificapex, that you’d mislike him to encounter. And to speculate what this mysterious something might, in fact, turn out to be.”
“Yeah, Markham, tell the man.” I ducked under the last of the hanging lanterns above the walkway. “What is it you don’t want him to see?”
In the meat-smelling damp, Markham stood blankly still, pale as a Lipkan corpse. Trickles of condensation rolled down his armor.
One of the racks now held an impressively polished set of Khryllian plate that could have been made for a short bear. From one of the wall hooks, an arm’s length from where my clothes lay in a wadded pile, hung a padded surcoat and leggings, and bleached linen underclothes. From another hook hung a long white cloak.
Standing facing the armored Lord Righteous, buck naked as the day he was born but with a shitload more hair, arms akimbo, the white-shot thatch that covered his vast chest and asscheeks and tree-trunk legs not managing to conceal an impressive array of scarring that included an angry red knot on a scarlet rope around his right thigh, stood Tyrkilld, Knight Aeddharr.
This worthy’s jaw hung slack, and his face rapidly drained bright red into killing white.
“How’s the leg, shitheel?”
Tyrkilld’s mouth closed with a snap so loud he should have cracked a couple teeth. He took a breath, then another, and by the time he finally spoke, his voice was nearly human.
#8220;It gives considerable pain. But against finding your vile self in this holy place, it bears comparison to casting a taper upon a house afire.”
“Thanks.” I turned toward the pale steel outrage that was Markham’s face. “Angvasse wants you to take me to the Pens. To take me to see Orbek.”
His expression didn’t so much as flicker. “The way lies back along our path,” he said. “As soon as you dress-”
“Through that office?” I nodded judiciously. “Go wait for me there.”
He looked blank. I flicked a couple back-of-the-hand shoos at him.
Markham’s face had gone beyond red. It was the color now of the robes. “I am tasked only-”
“Shut up about your tasks.” Maybe I could give the bastard an aneurysm and drop him right here. “Take a fucking hike. I’m sick of having you stare at my ass.”
“I-” Markham’s mouth snapped shut, then swung open again. “I-”
“Go on, fuck off.”
“My duty is to the Champion-”
“I got your doody right here.” I lifted my handful of metaphoric Holy Foreskin. “Ch’syavallanaig Khryllan’tai.”
It got real bright in there.
I had to squint against the blaze that sprang from my upraised palm, even though I knew enough to point it away from my eyes; it lit up Markham like he’d stuck his face in an arc welder. Tyrkilld smothered what would have been, from anyone other than a Khryllian, a blasphemous obscenity, and shielded his eyes with one bull-shank arm.
It’s not for nothing that one of Khryl’s epithets is “the Brilliant.” Maybe it’s a sungod thing.
It also felt like the palm of my hand was being burned to ash and cinders while being continuously Healed, which is no coincidence, because that’s basically what was happening. Also a sungod thing.
I guess Khryl doesn’t want His Invested Agents throwing His Authority around casually. Like, for example, just to piss off Lipkan ass-cobs. But, y’know, that’s one of those Covenant of Pirichanthe things. The gods can only grant power or take it away; what you do with it is up to you.
Which is why I could stand there with a mouthful of grin, even while I was shaking steam off the new pink skin on my palm and patting out the line of smolder that was climbing the cuff of the blood-robe.
“You know what that means?” I waved the hand a little more. It still stung like a bastard. “It means you have to fuck off. Now.”
Markham’s only reply was a flickering glance of pure cold revulsion before he executed a crisp quarter-face and marched into the night-black corridor. Tyrkilld and I listened to his footsteps fade away.
We looked at each other.
“That,” Tyrkilld said slowly, “was entertainment near sufficing to counter the obscenity of your presence.”
I couldn’t help grinning at him. “Yeah, I can’t stand the sonofabitch either.”
He paced slowly toward the pool. “So Our Lady Champion’s . . apology. . took an unusual form.”
I went over to my clothes and peered around. “You guys have a shower or something?”
“I made no request for an apology to be made. Of any kind.”
“Shower,” I said. “Sh. Ow. Er. You have one? I itch like a whore in a haystack.”
“The sole apology I owe is the one I go to offer unto Khryl.”
“For trying to kill me?” I said to his back. “Or for failing?”
He glowered down at the bloody water. “We are at war. I did nothing wrong. Nothing.”
“Tell it to Khryl.”
“I intend to.”
To hell with the shower. I peeled off the robe and let it drop, then picked up my pants. “Is that what this is about? You want me to tell you all’s fair because you think you’re at war? Fuck you, shitheel.”
“Like that, is it?”
“And it always will be.” I shook out my pants. “I’m not much for forgiveness.”
“Has any been requested?”
“Not by you.” I lowered the pants to the floor. “You’re walking pretty good for somebody who had about two fingers’ worth of thighbone shot off.”
Tyrkilld looked down. His right hand made a fist. On its back was a disk of new scar, big around as a gold Ankhanan royal.
After a moment, he said softly, “The armsman-”
“Braehew. Yeah, I heard.”
Tyrkilld nodded distantly. “When a Soldier gives himself to Khryl, there are ways in which he might. . continue to serve.”
I stared, my pants forgotten. “What, a bone graft? You’re walking on a piece of that poor bastard’s leg?”
“I am. My hand shares several of his bones, as well-as does your side.”
I pressed my bright-pink palm to the quadrangle of new scars over my liver. “No fucking way.”
“Your ribs were shattered. Did no one tell you this?”
“No.” I felt suddenly ill. More ill. “Nobody bothered to explain.”
“I will be calling upon his widow and orphaned daughters later tonight. Perhaps you’d be gracious enough to accompany me.”
I shook my head in blank astonishment. “Every one of you bastards is completely bugnuts. Every single one.”
“He fell in honorable battle-”
“My ass.”
“-in service to the Lord of Valor. It is my duty to offer whatever consolation his widow may require.”
“Whatever consolation?” I shook my head again. “I don’t want to know.”
Tyrkilld’s voice was hoarse. And bleak. “Braehew died without sons.”
“Didn’t I just say I don’t want to know?” I waved him off like somebody else’s fart. “The more I find out about Khryllians, the less I like any of you.”
Tyrkilld spoke from under his lowered brows. His face could not be seen. “House Aeddharr has been the flower of Jheledi knighthood since before the grand Lipkan Empire was even a ring of dog’s piss. Since before Our Lord of Valor was more than a simpleminded goatherd with a gift for the sling. I have some knowledge of the obligations of nobility. Which knowledge a person of generous nature might forgive me for suspecting you lack.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Tyrkilld turned a sidelong eye upon me. “If it’s no forward remark from one who was lately engaged in damaging your health, you seem well.”
“I’m all right.”