‘I did, Father.’
‘What is it, then? Do you feel you do not deserve the best out there?’
‘Not if it means breaking them.’
His father’s head had rocked back then, and he’d laughed. Loud enough to startle the herd.
Recalling that moment of his youth, the huge warrior smiled. Remember that day, Father? I bet you do. And if you could see me now. See the woman walking at my side. Why, I can almost hear that beautiful roar of your laughter.
One day, Father, I will bring her to you. This wild, free woman. We’ll step on to that long white road, walk between the trees – they must be big by now – and up through the estate gate.
I’ll see you standing by the front entrance, like a statue commanding the stone itself. New lines on your face, but that hooked grin still there, in a beard now gone grey. You’re leaning on your cane, and I can smell horses – like a flower’s heady scent on the air, and that scent will tell me that I’ve come home.
I’ll see you studying her, noting her height, her lithe confidence, the boldness in her eyes. And you’ll wonder if she’s broken me – not the other way round – you can see that. Not the other way round. But then you’ll look into my eyes, and your smile will broaden.
And you’ll tilt back that majestic head. And laugh to the heavens.
It will be the sweetest sound in the world. It will be the voice of our triumph. All of us. You, me, her.
Father, I do miss you.
Lostara’s calloused hand found his own, and he took some of her weight as she leaned one shoulder against him. ‘Bless Brys Beddict,’ she said under her breath.
Henar nodded. ‘I suspect a streak of the sentimental in my commander.’
‘Be glad of it. I am.’
‘It was … unexpected.’
‘Why? I fought for you, Henar. Not the Adjunct. You. He understood—’
‘No, not all that, beloved. All … this. Where we have found ourselves. And how we have found each other, for that matter.’
She looked up at the Strangers in the night sky. ‘So, he gives us what time there’s left to us. Less sentimental, then, more … pity. You’ve a dour streak, Henar – I think I prefer Brys’s sentimental one. Maybe I’ll get rid of you and ride back to him.’
‘You’d have to fight Aranict for him, I should think.’
‘Oh, you’re right, and I couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t. I like her far too much. Well then, seems I’m saddled with you.’
He smiled. Saddled. Hah.
‘Henar.’
‘Yes?’
‘I fear we won’t be coming back from this journey.’
He nodded, not because he agreed with her, but because he knew what she feared.
‘We’re going to die,’ she said. ‘In fact, we may not even make it across this desert.’
‘There is that risk.’
‘It’s hardly fair.’
‘I had a maid, once, at the country estate. Watermelon tits and big eyes—’
‘What?’
‘My father is terrible with names. So he came up with, er, memorable descriptions. Anyway, she used to tell me stories at night. Long, rambling tales of heroes. Loves lost, loves won. She’d make every ending sweet. To make the night’s dreams the same, you see?’
‘Just what a child needs.’
‘I suppose. But those stories weren’t for me. They were for her. She was from the coast, and she’d left behind a man she loved – this was Lether, don’t forget, and her whole community was trapped in the Indebted way of life. It’s why she came to work for our family. As for the young man, well, he was sent to sea.’ He was silent for a moment, remembering, and then he said, ‘Every night, she told me how she wanted her life to turn out – though of course I didn’t realize that at the time. But the truth of it was, she wanted that happy ending. She needed to believe in it. For her, and for everyone else.’
Lostara sighed. ‘What happened to her?’
‘As far as I know, she’s still there, at the country estate.’
‘Are you trying to break my heart, Henar?’
He shook his head. ‘My father worked the system as best he could, and he was not unkind with his Indebted. About a year before I left to train with the Lancers, watermelon tits with big eyes married the son of one of our horse-trainers. My last vision of her, her belly was out to here and those tits were even bigger.’
‘She’d given up on her man from the sea, then. Well, probably wise, I suppose. Part of growing up.’
Henar eyed her, and then away, out over the rocky landscape. ‘I think about her, every now and then.’ He grinned. ‘I even used to fantasize about her, yes, in the way young men will do.’ The grin faded. ‘But mostly I see her sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands flying and her eyes getting wider, and in that bed is her own child. A boy. Who will dream sweet dreams. And when the lantern is turned down, when she’s standing by the door to his room, that’s when the tears will run down her cheeks. And she’ll remember a young man on the edge of the sea.’ Lostara’s breathing had changed, somehow, and her face was hidden from his view. ‘My love?’
Her reply was muffled. ‘It’s all right. Henar, you keep surprising me. That’s all.’
‘We’ll survive this, Lostara Yil,’ he said. ‘And one day I will lead you by the hand up to my father’s house. And we’ll see him, standing there, waiting for us. And he will laugh.’
She looked up, wiping at her cheeks. ‘Laugh?’
‘There are pleasures in the world, Lostara Yil, that go beyond words.’ I heard one of those pleasures once. And I will hear it again. I will.
‘Before I reached the lofty position of inexhaustible masturbation that is Demidrek Septarch of the Great Temple,’ Banaschar was saying, ‘I had to follow the same rituals as everyone else. And one of those rituals was to counsel commoners – who knows why they’d ever seek out a priest of the Autumn Worm, but then, the truth of it is, the real and true function of priests of all colours is simply that of listening to a litany of moans, fears and confessions, all for the betterment of someone’s soul – never could figure out whose, but no matter.’ He paused. ‘Are you actually listening, Adjunct?’
‘It appears that I have little choice,’ she replied.
The Glass Desert stretched ahead of them. A small flanking troop, scouts, he assumed, were slightly ahead and to the left – north – of the vanguard, moving on foot as was everyone else. But directly before Banaschar and the Adjunct there stretched nothing but a broken plain studded with crystals, beneath a ghoulish sky.
The ex-priest shrugged. ‘Now isn’t this an interesting turn. Blessed woman, will you hear my tales of mortal woe? Will you give counsel?’
The look she cast at him was unreadable and it occurred to him, an instant later, that it was just as well.
He cleared his throat. ‘Occasionally, one of them would complain. About me. Or, rather, about us sanctimonious shits in these ridiculous robes and whatnot. You know what they’d be so irritated about? I’ll tell you. Love. That’s what.’
A second glance, even briefer than the first one.
He nodded. ‘Precisely. They asked: “You, priest – you, with that hand beneath the vestments – what in Hood’s name do you know about love? More to the point, what do you know about romance?” You see, most people end up moaning about relationships. More than being poor, or lame or sick, more than any other topic you could imagine. Lovers, husbands, wives, strangers, sisters – endless confessions and desires and betrayals and all the rest. That’s why the question would eventually come round – being priests we’d excused ourselves from the whole mess. Hardly a strong position from which to dispense inane truisms passing as advice. Do you follow me so far, Adjunct?’
‘Have you nothing to drink, Banaschar?’