Nearby, the Colours band started to play, a practice session. The noise seemed to make Yoncy jump. She covered her ears with her hands, and scowled. The children playing with her laughed.
What kind of life was she going to have as she became a young woman? Gol wondered. She’d stay among the retinue, because it was her family. Then what? Gol didn’t see her following Dalin into the regiment. Would she just become one of the women folk? Would she marry some fine young lasman? It seemed like only yesterday she had been running around his feet and drawing him funny, simple pictures to pin over his bunk.
Gol reached into his jacket pocket and took out the last drawing she’d given him. He unfolded it and looked at it. It still gave him a chill. Just before the Aigor run, he’d eaten supper with Criid, Dalin and Yoncy. She’d done it for him then. Every detail of the Aigor horror was there: him and Bask and Luffrey, the two moons, the silo, the bad shadow.
How had she known that? Just another gruesome coincidence? The voice of Sek had reached Gol Kolea, and had threatened his offspring. If it could do that, then it could toy with the mind of a little girl. The idea disturbed him very much, that she could have been touched by that darkness. He would protect her, of course, if it ever came to it, but there was something about her that troubled him. He’d been estranged from both his children, but he’d managed to become close again with Dalin. But Dalin was a grown-up, and a lasman, and they had a connection. He loved Yoncy, but she always felt like a stranger. Remote from him.
It didn’t matter. She was his child. He would keep the bad shadow away from her.
‘Feth, but that haircut’s cruel.’
Gol looked up. Ban Daur had wandered up. He tucked the picture away.
‘Lice,’ he said. ‘Tona said it was for the best.’
Daur nodded.
‘They’ll all be like it in a day or two,’ said Gol. ‘Dozens of little shaven-headed children running about the place.’
Daur chuckled.
‘Poor thing,’ he said. ‘It makes her look like a little boy.’
Gol glanced at him.
‘Oh, no offence, Gol,’ he said.
‘None taken,’ said Gol.
‘Ironic, though,’ said Daur.
‘What’s ironic?’
Daur shrugged.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘Because of the misunderstanding.’
‘What misunderstanding, Ban?’
Daur sat down on the step next to him.
‘Elodie was telling me, oh, this is months ago. Back on Balhaut.’
‘Years, you mean?’
‘Right!’ Daur shook his head. ‘Elodie was asking around about me among the Verghast women. She wanted some dirt. Thought Zhukova and I had a thing.’
Gol raised his eyebrows.
‘We didn’t,’ said Daur, tutting at his look. ‘The point is, she was talking to the women about you, and asking if I’d known you back at Vervunhive, and it came out that several of them swore blind your kids were both boys.’
‘This is the women?’
‘Yes,’ said Daur, amused. ‘Galayda, I think. Honne, maybe. I don’t know. They were completely sure of it. Came as a shock when Elodie put them straight.’
‘They thought I had sons?’
‘Yeah. You know how stories get all mangled up. Most people didn’t even know you had kids with the retinue for a long time. They were convinced you had lost two sons on Verghast. Gol?’
Daur looked at him.
‘Gol? Are you all right? Gol?’
Gol didn’t answer. A memory had just dug into his brain, like the sun coming out through rain, like something sprouting up out of the ground. Him and Livy, Throne love her. On the high wall of Vervunhive, the Panorama Walk where he’d proposed to her. One of their rare, precious visits. A special day. He’d saved up bonus pay to buy them passes. Up above the hive, taking in the view, mixing with the high-hivers out on their constitutionals. The looks they got from those snooty bastards…
Livy had put her hand on her belly. There was barely a bump to show.
‘It’s a boy,’ she had said.
That’s how she’d told him. He’d roared with joy. The snooty bastards had all turned to look. That’s how she’d told him.
About Dalin. It had to be. That’s how she’d told him that Dalin was on the way. That was the first time. Throne, his memory had been so buckled and ruined after Hagia. Gol could only remember some of his old life. Some small, bright details. The rest was a blur.
It’s a boy. He could hear her saying it. That’s how she’d told him.
Except there’d been the cart between them. The babycart with the baby in it. Dalin. He’d had to save extra, pay extra, almost a full half-fare, so they could bring the babycart too.
It’s a boy. And Dalin had been there, right there, already.
It’s a boy.
Gol felt as if he was going to fall over, even though he was already sitting down.
‘Gol, stop fething around. Are you all right?’
His head swam. He looked up and saw Daur staring at him. Daur had his hands on Gol’s shoulders, propping him up.
‘Gol? Feth it, you’re white as a sheet.’
‘A headache,’ he said. ‘I’m fine… Just a sudden headache.’
‘It looks like more than a fething headache,’ said Daur. ‘I thought you were going to keel over.’
‘I get them from time to time,’ Gol said. ‘You know, since…’
Daur nodded. The injuries Gol had taken on Phantine had been so severe, his recovery had been genuinely miraculous. Daur helped Gol up.
‘I’ll go see Curth,’ he said.
‘I think you’d better. Let me come with you.’
Kolea shook his head. His vision was still swimming.
‘No, it’s all right.’
Concerned, Daur stood and watched as Gol shuffled away. He watched as Gol turned and took a long look at Yoncy, playing in the yard.
‘What’s this now?’ asked Didi Gendler, flicking aside a lho-stick.
A large, gloss black transport was pulling into the yard, followed by two staff vehicles. They were gloss black too, gleaming in the watery sunlight. The vehicles edged around the bottleneck of the munition trucks and the men unloading them, and drew up beside the medicae trailer.
‘They’re burying her, Didi,’ said Meryn.
‘Gaunt’s bitch?’ asked Jakub Wilder.
Meryn nodded. The three of them were standing at the side of the yard, under one of the plastek awnings.
‘She gets a fething funeral?’ asked Gendler.
‘Yeah,’ said Meryn.
‘A private funeral?’ asked Wilder.
‘Of course,’ said Meryn. ‘She was… what do you call it? High-hive.’
‘She was a gakking lifeward,’ snarled Gendler. ‘Some low-born tart. No House blood in her.’
‘No blood in her at all, now,’ said Meryn.
‘That’s fething cold,’ said Wilder.
‘She worked for the aristo scumbags, though, didn’t she?’ said Meryn. ‘Employed by House Chass. All that fancy kit and augmetics. So she gets the works.’
‘She gets the works because she’s Gaunt’s bitch,’ said Gendler.
‘She gets the works because she was lifeward to Gaunt’s brat, and Gaunt’s brat is high-hive blood, so that’s the way it goes,’ said Meryn.
He could see that Gendler was seething. Didi Gendler had been high-hive once, but he’d lost it all in the Zoican War, and Guard service during the act of Consolation had been about his only option. Sometimes, he got so wound up at his loss of status, Meryn thought the man would split right out of his pale, fair-haired skin and his raw bones would go stomping off to strangle someone. Gendler’s resentment for Felyx Chass was legendary. He hated the privilege that got Felyx his sinecure in the regiment, and his special treatment.