‘Nonetheless,’ said Yan Tovis.
‘Very well, I accept it, and my first act is to abdicate and yield the throne and all of Wise Kharkanas to you, Queen Yan Tovis. Captain Brevity, find us a royal seal – there must be one lying around here somewhere – and parchment and ink and wax.’
The queen of the Shake was smiling, but it was a sad smile. ‘“Wise Kharkanas.” I had forgotten that honorific. Queen Sandalath Drukorlat, I respectfully decline your offer. My duties are upon the Shore.’ She nodded to Brevity. ‘Until such time that other Tiste Andii return to Kharkanas, I humbly submit Captain Brevity here to act as your Chancellor, Palace Guard Commander, and whatever other duties of organization as are required to return this palace to its former glory.’
Sandalath snorted. ‘Oh, clever. And I suppose a few hundred of your Shake are waiting outside with mops and buckets.’
‘Letherii, actually. Islanders and other refugees. They have known great privation, Highness, and will view the privilege of palace employment with humility and gratitude.’
‘And if I turn them all away? Oh yes, I see the traps you’ve set around me, Yan Tovis. You intend to guilt me on to that accursed throne. But what if I am a harder woman than you?’
‘The burden of rule hardens us both, Highness.’
Sandalath cast Withal a beseeching look. ‘Talk her out of this, husband.’
‘I would if I thought I had any chance of swaying her, beloved.’ He strode to the base of the dais, eyeing the throne. ‘Needs a cushion or two, I should think, before you could hope to sit there for any length of time.’
‘And you as my consort? Gods, don’t you think I could do better?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ he replied. ‘For the moment, however, you are stuck with me, and,’ he added with a wave at the throne, ‘with this. So sit down and make it official, Sand, so Yan Tovis can kneel or curtsey or whatever it is she has to do, and Brevity can get on with scrubbing the floors and beating the tapestries.’
The Tiste Andii woman cast about, as if seeking another amphora, but the nearest one stood perched on a stone cup near the side door – now an orphan, Withal saw, noting the unoccupied stone base on the entrance’s other side. He waited to see if she’d make the fierce march to repeat her gesture of frustration and anger, but all at once his wife seemed to subside. Thank Mael. That would have made her look ridiculous. Decorum, beloved, as befits the Queen of Darkness. Aye, some things you can’t run from.
‘There will be two queens in this realm,’ Sandalath said, coming round to slump down in the throne. ‘Don’t even think of curtseying, Tovis.’ She eyed the Shake woman with something close to a glower. ‘Other Tiste Andii, you said.’
‘Surely they have sensed Mother Dark’s return,’ Yan Tovis replied. ‘Surely, they too understand that the diaspora is at last at an end.’
‘Just how many Tiste Andii do you imagine are left?’
‘I don’t know. But I do know this: those who live shall return here. Just as the Shake have done. Just as you have done.’
‘Good. First one gets here can have this throne and all that goes with it. Husband, start building us a cottage in the woods. Make it remote. No, make it impossible to reach. And tell none but me where it is.’
‘A cottage.’
‘Yes. With a drawbridge and a moat, and pitfalls and sprawl-traps.’
‘I’ll start drawing up plans.’
Yan Tovis said, ‘Queen Sandalath, I beg your leave.’
‘Yes. Sooner the better.’
The ex-Letherii officer tilted her head, wheeled and strode from the chamber.
Captain Brevity stepped forward to face the throne and settled on one knee. ‘Highness, shall I summon the palace staff?’
‘In here? Abyss take me, no. Start with all the other rooms. Go on. You are, er, dismissed. Husband! Don’t even think of leaving.’
‘The thought had not even occurred to me.’ And he managed to hold his neutral expression against her withering scepticism.
As soon as they were alone, Sandalath sprang from the throne as if she’d just found one of those ancient tacks. ‘That bitch!’
Withal flinched. ‘Yan—’
‘No, not her – she’s right, the cow. I’m stuck with this, for the moment. Besides, why should she be the only one to suffer the burden of rule, as she so quaintly put it?’
‘Well, put it that way, and I can see how she might be in need of a friend.’
‘An equal of sorts, yes. The problem is, I don’t fit. I’m not her equal. I didn’t lead ten thousand people to this realm. I barely got you here.’
He shrugged. ‘But here we are.’
‘And she knew.’
‘Who?’
‘That bitch Tavore. Somehow, she knew this would happen—’
‘There’s no proof of that, Sand,’ Withal replied. ‘It was Fiddler’s reading, not hers.’
She made a dismissive gesture. ‘Technicalities, Withal. She trapped me is what she did. I should never have been there. No, she knew there was a card waiting for me. There’s no other explanation.’
‘But that’s no explanation at all, Sand.’
The look she threw him was miserable. ‘You think I don’t know that?’
Withal hesitated. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘your kin are coming. Are you really certain you want me standing there at your side when they do?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What you’re really saying is: do I want to be standing at her side when they arrive? A mere human, a shortlived plaything to the Queen of Darkness. That’s how you think they’ll see you, isn’t it?’
‘Well …’
‘You’re wrong. It will be the opposite and that might be just as bad. They’ll see you for what you are: a threat.’
‘A what?’
She regarded him archly. ‘Your kind are the inheritors – of everything. And here you are, along with all those Letherii and blood-thin Shake, squatting in Kharkanas. Is there anywhere you damned bastards don’t end up sooner or later? That’s what they’ll be thinking.’
‘Mael knows, they’ve got a point,’ he said, looking away, down the length of the throne room, imagining a score or more regal Tiste Andii standing there, eyes hard, faces like stone. ‘I’d better leave.’
‘No you won’t. Mother Dark—’ Abruptly she shut her mouth.
He turned his head, studied her. ‘Your goddess is whispering in your ear, Sand? About me?’
‘You’ll be needed,’ she said, once more eyeing the lone amphora. ‘All of you. The Letherii refugees. The Shake. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair!’
He took her arm as she moved to assault the crockery. Pulled her round until she was in his arms. Startled, terrified, he held her as she wept. Mael! What awaits us here?
But there was no answer, and his god had never felt so far away.
Yedan Derryg dragged the tip of the Hust sword, making a line in the crumbled bones of the Shore. The cascading wall of light flowed in reflection along the length of the ancient blade, like tears of milk. ‘We are children here,’ he muttered.
Captain Pithy hawked phlegm, stepped forward and spat into the wall, and then turned to face him. ‘Something tells me we’d better grow up fast, Watch.’
Yedan clenched his teeth, chewed on a half-dozen possible responses to her grim observation, before saying, ‘Yes.’
‘The faces in the wash,’ said Pithy, nodding at the eternally descending rain of light rearing before them, ‘there’s more of ’em. And seems they’re getting closer, as if clawing their way through. I’m expecting t’see an arm thrust out any time now.’ She hitched her thumbs in her weapon belt. ‘Thing is, sir, what happens then?’
He stared into the Lightfall. Tried remembering memories that weren’t his own. The grinding of molars sounded like distant thunder in his head. ‘We fight.’
‘And that’s why you’ve recruited everyone with arms and legs into this army of yours.’
‘Not everyone. The Letherii islanders—’