'Just so long as there's no temple,' he said, his good humour fading.
'The priests have not crossed the water,' she said. 'But they will.' Lia leaned back and stretched, removing her hooded cloak and shaking the water from it. He glanced at her and felt immediately renewed and revived. Her dark hair was cut short, after the latest fashion in Stone, and it emphasized the extraordinary beauty of her features, her large, dark eyes, and the radiance of her smile. He wondered if he was merely seeing her with a father's eye, but then recalled the effect she had on his young officers. Most were struck dumb in her presence. Maybe here, he thought, at this arse end of the empire, she will put aside the stupidities her mother instilled in her. Then, after a reasonable period, they could return to Stone and take up their positions in respectable society. Lia could marry a man she loved and know true happiness. And he could sit in the sunshine and watch his grandchildren grow.
I should live so long, he thought miserably. His back ached, and he could feel his knee joints swelling with the wet and the cold. Fifty years a soldier, marching in all weathers, sleeping on cold ground. It is a marvel I can walk at all, he thought.
But never in his worst nightmares did he expect to end his days across the water, in the very land that had seen the destruction of a Stone army. He shivered at the memory. Of all the participants in that reckless exercise Appius alone had emerged with credit, organizing his Panther into a fighting retreat to the safety of the previous night's fortified camp. Even then he had lost half his men.
The man Connavar was a devil in human form. He had organized his troops brilliantly, and Valanus, expecting the usual Keltoi tactics of a massed charge, had fallen into a trap. Cut off from supplies, unable to build a camp, the weary, hungry army had been attacked first by heavy cavalry, then by mounted archers. Cogden Field. The name made his skin crawl. Twelve thousand soldiers of Stone had died there.
Back in Stone the shock had been colossal. Appius had been arrested and returned for trial, but he and three other officers had been acquitted of negligence, the full brunt of the city's fury falling upon dead Valanus, who had, it was said, led his fifteen thousand men against an enemy a million strong. It was such arrant nonsense that Appius could hardly credit it. Yet the people believed it. Their pride would not let them even consider that a Stone army could be defeated by a mere thirty thousand Rigante. No-one wanted to hear the truth – save Jasaray. And then only in secret.
He remembered the day the general – yet to be emperor – had summoned him to his home, forcing Appius to relive every moment of the battle, sketching out fighting lines, recalling tactics. First the Rigante had killed all the Cenii scouts used by Valanus, and the army had been forced to march blind. Then a detachment had cut behind them, savaging the supply column, killing the drivers and burning the wagons. At the last they had surrounded Valanus on Cogden Field, a combined force of Rigante, Norvii and Pannone tribesmen, all under the command of Connavar.
'I trained him,' said Jasaray, and Appius thought he detected a note of pride in the general's voice.
'You trained him too damned well,' Appius said. 'We'll have to take an army back – and swiftly.'
Jasaray shook his head. 'All in good time. The defeat has frightened the populace. They no longer trust the Council to make strong decisions. Neither do I. It is my belief that a single figure should rule Stone: a single mind controlling the destiny of our city.'
'Your mind, general?' Appius had asked.
'If they call upon me it would be unpatriotic to refuse. Where do you stand, my old friend?'
'As I always have, Scholar. By your side.'
'I expected no less,' admitted Jasaray.
The wagon lurched as a wheel hit a sunken stone. Appius backed up the horses, and moved round the obstacle. He could see the bridge up ahead now. It was a wooden structure no more than fifty feet across.
Aye, he had supported Jasaray, watched him become emperor. But when his own family were in trouble…? 'Put not your faith in emperors,' he whispered.
'Did you say something, Father?'
'No, I was just thinking out loud.'
'Will Barus get into trouble for loaning us his house?' asked Lia, suddenly.
'No, there will be no trouble. We are not runaways, Lia. They did not serve the papers. We have committed no crime.'
'But we knew they were coming when we fled.'
'We did not flee,' he snapped. 'We sought the emperor's permission to remove ourselves from Stone. He granted it. That was the sum of his help. So we did not flee.'
'You are bitter. It does not become you. Anyway, we left in the dead of night, while friends of ours were being taken to prison. It felt like flight.'
'No friends of mine were arrested, Lia. I have never subscribed to their foolish ways. I never will.'
'I do not think they were foolish,' she said. 'And I do not believe the Source would think them so.'
'Aye, a god of real power, this Source. All who believe in him are put to death and he raises not a finger. But let us not argue it again. I had all this with Pirae.'
Both fell silent at the mention of her name. Appius was not present when the Crimson Priests arrested her. He was serving on the eastern border, helping to put down a bloody revolt. He arrived in Stone the night after her trial, and missed her execution. Pirae had refused to recant, and had faced down her accusers, calling them 'small men with small dreams'.
It seemed strange to him that a woman who had spent her life in the pursuit of every illicit pleasure should have come to her end with courage and dignity. He glanced at Lia. She was not his daughter. She had been sired by one of Pirae's many lovers. He doubted if even Pirae had known which one. Yet he loved Lia more than he had ever loved anything. She was sunlight upon his soul; cool clear water in the desert of his life.
Pirae had betrayed him at every turn. Sullen and spoiled, she had spent much of his fortune on ludicrously expensive clothes, silks and satins, jewel-encrusted gowns, baubles of every kind. She had never shown the slightest interest in any worthy cause. And then, at the age of forty, had stood against the might of the priests and defied them, knowing they would kill her.
'And all for a tree!' he said aloud.
'Why does the thought of the Tree upset you so much?' asked Lia.
'What?'
'You mentioned the Tree again.'
'I didn't realize I said it aloud.'
'The Tree is merely a representation of the power of the Source; spirit that flows upward, outward, inward and downward, mirroring the seasons. It has nothing to do with tree worship. That is a silly lie put about by the priests.'
'And why can you not understand?' he countered. 'The priests represent power in Stone. To go against them is wilful and dangerous. It has left us here, in this forsaken cesspit of a land.'
'I was happy to stay,' she reminded him.
To stay and die,' he pointed out.
'Some things are worth dying for.'
'Aye, but not trees,' he said.
The team halted before the bridge. Appius stood and stared at the raging river as it gushed past the supports. The structure looked insubstantial and neglected. With a silent curse he sat down and cracked the whip. The horses moved out onto the wooden boards. Below, in the black churning water, the swollen body of a dead bull was swept along by the flood. It rammed against one of the supports, which buckled and fell away. The wagon lurched. Appius rose in his seat, cracking his whip once more. The frightened horses lunged into the traces.
Then the bridge collapsed.
Appius was thrown clear, his head striking a post. Then he was pitched unconscious into the water.
Banouin had been miserable for most of the day, and not just because of the hissing winds and the driving rain. He had not slept well, his dreams full of anxiety and humiliation. Happily he could not remember most of the dreams, but one had clung to his conscious mind. He was standing naked in the centre of Stone, and crowds of people were laughing at him. Deep down he knew the reason for the dream, and it made him feel like a traitor and an ingrate.