Open the Agriont to the wounded, to the homeless. With the army away there is room to spare. Barracks for thousands, and ample provisions.
Bayaz was shaking his bald head. A risk. We have no way of knowing who we would be letting in. Gurkish agents. Spies of Khalul. Not all of them are what they appear.
Jezal ground his teeth. I am prepared to take the risk. Am I king here, or not?
You are, growled Bayaz, and you would be well advised to act like it. This is no time for sentiment. The enemy are closing on Arnaults Wall. In places they might be within two miles of where we stand.
Two miles? murmured Jezal, his eyes flickering nervously towards the west again. Arnaults Wall was a fine grey line through the buildings, looking a terribly frail sort of a barrier from up here, and worryingly close. A sudden fear gripped him. Not the guilty concern he felt for the theoretical people down there in the smoke, but a real and very personal fear for his own life. Like the one he had felt among the stones, when the two warriors advanced on him with murder in mind. Perhaps he had made a mistake not leaving the city when he had the chance. Perhaps it was not too late to
I will stand or fall alongside the people of the Union! he shouted, as angry at his own cowardice as he was at the Magus. If they are willing to die for me, then I am willing to die for them! He turned his shoulder towards Bayaz and quickly looked away. Open the Agriont, Marshal Varuz. You can fill the palace with wounded too, if you have to.
Varuz glanced nervously sideways at Bayaz, then gave a stiff bow. Hospitals will be set up in the Agriont, then, your Majesty. The barracks will be opened to the people. The palace we had probably better leave sealed, at least until things get worse.
Jezal could hardly bear to imagine what worse might look like. Good, good. See it done. He had to wipe a tear from under his eye as he turned away from the smouldering city and made for the long stair. The smoke, of course. Nothing but the smoke.
Queen Terez sat alone, framed in the window of their vast bedchamber.
The Countess Shalere was still lurking around the palace somewhere, but it seemed she had learned to keep her scorn well out of Jezals way. The rest of Terez ladies she had sent back to Styria before the Gurkish blockaded the harbour. Jezal rather wished that he could have returned the queen herself along with the rest but that, unfortunately, was not an option.
Terez did not so much as glance in his direction as Jezal shut the door. He had to stifle a heavy sigh as he trudged across the room, his boots muddy from the spitting rain, his skin greasy from the soot in the air outside.
You are treading dirt with you, said Terez, without looking round, her voice as icy as ever.
War is a dirty business, my love. He saw the side of her face twitch with disgust when he said the last two words, and hardly knew whether he wanted to laugh or cry at it. He dropped down heavily in the chair opposite her without touching his boots, knowing all the while that it would infuriate her. There was nothing he could do that would not.
Must you come to me in this manner? she snapped.
Oh, but I could not stay away! You are my wife, after all.
Not by choice.
It was not my choice either, but I am willing to make the best of things! Believe it or not I would rather have married someone who did not hate me! Jezal shoved one hand through his hair and pressed his anger down with some difficulty. But let us not fight, please. I have enough fighting to do out there. More than I can stand! Can we not, at least be civil to one another?
She looked at him for a long moment, a thoughtful frown on her face. How can you?
How can I what?
Keep trying.
Jezal ventured a fragment of a grin. I had hoped that you might come to admire my persistence, if nothing else. She did not smile, but he sensed, perhaps, the slightest softening of the hard line of her mouth. He hardly dared suppose that she might have finally begun to thaw, but he was willing to seize on the slightest shred of hope. Hope was in short supply, these days. He leaned towards her, staring earnestly into her eyes. You have made it clear that you think very little of me, and I suppose that I hardly blame you. I do not think so very much of myself, believe me. But I am trying I am trying very hard to be a better man.
The corner of Terez mouth twitched up in a sad kind of smile, but a kind of smile nonetheless. To his great surprise she reached out, and placed one hand tenderly on his face. His breath caught in his throat, skin tingling where her fingertips rested.
Why can you not understand that I despise you? she asked. He felt himself go very cold. I despise the look of you, the feel of you, the sound of your voice. I despise this place and its people. The sooner the Gurkish burn it all to the ground the happier Ill be. She took her hand away and turned back to the window, a glimmering of light down her perfect profile.
Jezal slowly stood up. I think I will find another room to sleep in tonight. This one is altogether too cold.
At last.
It can be a terrible curse for a man to get everything he ever dreamed of. If the shining prizes turn out somehow to be empty baubles, he is left without even his dreams for comfort. All the things that Jezal had thought he wantedpower, fame, the beautiful trappings of greatnessthey were nothing but dust. All he wanted now was for things to be as they had been, before he got them. But there was no way back. Not ever.
He really had nothing further to say. He turned stiffly and trudged for the door.
Better Left Buried
When the fighting is over you dig, if youre still alive. You dig graves for your dead comrades. A last mark of respect, however little you might have had for them. You dig as deep as you can be bothered, you dump them in, you cover them up, they rot away and are forgotten. Thats the way its always been.
There would be a lot of digging when this fight was done. A lot of digging for both sides.
Twelve days, now, since the fire started falling. Since the wrath of God began to rain on these arrogant pinks, and lay blackened waste to their proud city. Twelve days since the killing startedat the walls, and in the streets, and through the houses. For twelve days in the cold sunlight, in the spitting rain, in the choking smoke, and for twelve nights by the light of flickering fires, Ferro had been in the thick of it.
Her boots slapped against the polished tiles, leaving black marks down the immaculate hallway behind her. Ash. The two districts where the fighting was raging were covered in it, now. It had mingled with the thin rain to make a sticky paste, like black glue. The buildings that still stood, the charred skeletons of the ones that did not, the people who killed and the people who died, all coated in it. The scowling guards and the cringing servants frowned at her and the marks she left, but she had never cared a shit for their opinions, and was not about to start. They would have more ash than they knew what to do with soon. The whole place would be ash, if the Gurkish got their way.
And it looked very much as if they might. Each day and each night, for all the efforts of the rag-tag defenders, for all the dead they left among the ruins, the Emperors troops worked their way further into the city.
Towards the Agriont.
Yulwei was sitting in the wide chamber when she got there, shrunken into a chair in one corner, the bangles hanging from his limp arms. The calmness which had always seemed to swaddle him like an old blanket was stripped away. He looked worried, worn, eyes sunken in dark sockets. A man looking defeat in the face. A look that Ferro was getting used to seeing over the past few days.
Ferro Maljinn, back from the front. I always said that you would kill the whole world if you could, and now you have your chance. How do you like war, Ferro?