‘It is. My father spent many hours here. It made him a touch morose; too much time to reminisce, I think. It reminded him of what we had lost.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Taim. ‘The past must be heavy here.’
‘Is there anywhere it rests lightly?’ Lheanor murmured.
‘Not in these days.’
‘You can tell a good deal about a man from what he feels when he looks out from a great height,’ the Thane said. ‘What do you feel?’
‘Nothing good. Not today. But it is, nevertheless, a beautiful view.’
He settled into a smaller seat beside Lheanor. They did not speak for some time. Taim’s eyes closed and he rested. It had been a long time since he rested.
‘I am sorry that our re-acquaintance has not been in better times,’ he heard Lheanor say, and looked round to the old man. ‘It was a sad enough sight to see you passing through on your way south at Gryvan’s bidding. I thought your return, and Roaric’s, would be a happier occasion.’
‘As did I,’ said Taim. ‘Roaric cannot be far behind me, though. The times may be dark, but at least he will be home.’
‘It’s a poorer home he’ll return to than the one he left. He had a brother then, before he went south.’ Taim averted his eyes. Lheanor’s grief was too painfully apparent. It leaked out in his voice, beneath the words. ‘And what of your home, Taim? I and my Blood have failed your lord, and you.’
‘No,’ protested Taim. ‘You are the only true friends we have. The failure is not yours. That blame lies elsewhere.’
Lheanor’s brow was furrowed. ‘Blame; yes, there should be blame. For this plague of loss. But blame will not breathe life back into the dead. Anduran is gone, half of Kolglas burned, Glasbridge threatened. The enemy must have been at the walls of Tanwrye for weeks now; even if its defenders still hold, they are far beyond our help. As your Thane and all his family must be.’
Taim pursed his lips and bowed his head. ‘I know. I came too late.’
‘Nonsense,’ muttered Lheanor. ‘You have driven yourself and your men to exhaustion getting here now. In any case, if you had come any sooner you would only have added your bodies to those already feeding the crows. Forgive me. I speak poorly. Your family is somewhere in the valley still, I know.’
‘You need ask no forgiveness of me,’ replied Taim. ‘Your son gave his life at Grive. You have already paid a terrible price for your friendship to my Blood. But . . . when I went south, Jaen, my wife, went to stay with our daughter’s family. In Glasbridge.’
The Thane sighed. ‘I did not know. Ah, I would rather not have lived to see times such as these.’
There was such a desolation, Taim thought, behind those weary eyes. Is this what is to become of us all now? Hollowed-out; bereft.
‘I try to keep hold of the hope that one of them may still live,’ Lheanor said. ‘Naradin, if not Croesan. Even the babe, perhaps. But my heart tells me it is a foolish hope. The hounds of the Black Road have done their work thoroughly. I know you loved Croesan’s life as well as you did your own.’
‘Better. He was a better man than me.’
‘One of the best. I will miss him. He and I often sat here, talking.’
‘Of what?’
‘What do old men always talk about? Our families. Our harvests, our hunting dogs, the price of furs and wool. He was not quite so old as me, so when I talked about aches and pains he could only listen. He did that well, though.’ Lheanor smiled a broken smile. ‘But we did talk of weightier matters, too. We thought our battles were to be fought against the pride of Gryvan and the Shadowhand; that their tithes and ambitions were a more likely threat than war out of the north, for the next few years at least. We hoped to die in our beds.’
‘The ambitions of the High Thane may be the greater danger, in the end,’ said Taim. ‘I heard rumours, on my way.’
The Thane of Kilkry gave no sign of being surprised at such a suggestion. He regarded his hands as they lay in his lap. Time had slackened and paled their skin, and patterned them with spots and blemishes. Lheanor ran one over the other thoughtfully.
‘Dangerous to place too much faith in whispers,’ he said without looking up, ‘but still I’d place more in them than in the Haig Blood. Lagair, Gryvan’s Steward here, always seems to be lurking at my shoulder these last few days. His words of condolence and concern are as hollow as a dead oak. Aid has been slow to come from the south; there’s no more than a hundred or two here even now. The word is that there are great companies mustering at last, in Vaymouth, but where were they when my son was facing the Black Road ? I should have sent every sword I command with Gerain. Perhaps I should march them out now, lead them myself.’
Only then did he look up and meet Taim’s sombre eyes.
‘My master in Vaymouth forbids it, though. He forbids me to avenge the death of my own son. I am commanded to await his armies. And I am afraid, Taim. A Thane should not admit to it, but I am. Somehow our enemies have brought the woodwights to their side, and if I march for Anduran, as my heart says I should, what of my villages, my people on my own borders? How has this come to pass, Taim, that Black Road and woodwight stand together against us? I never thought to see such a thing.’
‘Nor I,’ said Taim. ‘But then, I never thought to see any of this come to pass.’ He gave his head a single, sharp shake as if surprised at what he recalled. ‘I thought the fighting in Dargannan would be my last. I thought I was going home, and would never leave my wife again.’
The narrow door creaked open and Ilessa, Lheanor’s wife, entered bearing a tray of tiny cakes. She held it out to Taim. The warrior looked up at her with a weak smile. She wore her years with elegance, possessed of that altogether different kind of beauty that some women found in age.
‘I am not accustomed to being waited upon by the wife of a Thane,’ he said as he took one of the cakes.
She smiled. There was compassion in her eyes, a marvellous gentleness in her aged face. Taim had known Lheanor and Ilessa for much of his adult life, and knew that their feelings for him, and for Croesan and the others, were genuine and deep; strong enough to emerge even out of their own limitless sorrow.
‘And I am not accustomed to playing the waiting girl,’ Ilessa said, ‘but I thought it better that it should be me who disturbed you. You are much in demand. The High Thane’s Steward has been asking for you. He seems to think you and he have much to talk about.’
Taim grimaced. ‘Lagair can wait. I lack the strength to fence with one of Gryvan’s mouthpieces at the moment. I might say something better left unsaid.’
‘I told him I did not know where you were,’ said Ilessa. She set the tray down and smoothed the front of her dress.
‘In truth, I barely know where I am myself,’ murmured Taim.
‘How long will you be staying with us? I visited with your men this morning. They are weary.’
Part of Taim would willingly stay here, in this high, cramped chamber with only the sky and wind and gulls for companions, for weeks on end. That part of him had long ago been subjugated, though, by a warrior’s sense of duty.
‘Only a day or two, my lady,’ he said with an almost apologetic smile. ‘You know I must go on, to Glasbridge. Whatever is to become of me and my men, we cannot rest. Not yet.’
Anyara poked her head out from the hut and found an expectant group waiting. A cluster of Kyrinin children stared at her. They looked soft, pale and harmless. One or two of the younger ones shuffled behind their older comrades as her tousled head appeared. As Anyara hauled herself out on to the wooden boards and stretched the sleep from her limbs, the children backed a few yards further away before reforming their group. Beyond them, a woman paddled by in a little round boat of taut animal skins. Anyara watched as she coasted effortlessly off along the edge of the reedbeds. A flock of tiny birds burst from the reeds and went churning and chattering away. The lake wore a mirror calm. Scraps of mist hung over the water, obscuring the furthest shores, and the whole scene was eerily beautiful and still.