‘Keep such thoughts to yourself,’ Yalad snapped.
‘Forgive me, gate sergeant. You are most correct. But understand: I describe no blessing on my part. This gift pains the recipient, who would rather return it than accept the burden. But then, into whose hands?’
‘Is Denul truly godless?’ Sandalath asked.
Prok seemed to flinch. ‘Imagine that: the power of life and death in my hands arrives as a godless thing. How eager we are to turn about miracles, and make them as mundane as, oh, binding the laces on your moccasin. Yet with each wonder we tread underfoot, the world gets just a little more … pale.’
‘Why not brighter, surgeon?’ Sandalath suggested. ‘What need for gods, should the future bring us all such powers?’
He blinked at her. ‘You think gods offer nothing more than the delusion of bargaining, milady? With every moment, we speak with the world, and in its own way it speaks back – should we choose to hear it. But now, cut out its tongue. Excise its participation in this dialogue. Indeed, do that and to continue speaking will feel most foolish, yes? The prayer unanswered makes for a bleak echo.’ He leaned forward and carefully set the tankard down on the stone dais surrounding the hearth. ‘Or worse, the returning whisper will arrive filled with utter nonsense. It is my belief, milady, that cults and religions often find their shape out of the necessity to fill the silence of a world made godless, and it was made godless precisely because we stopped listening. In place of honest humility, then, are set rules and prohibitions, inquisitions and the violent silencing of a host of avowed or imagined enemies. Do this and not that. Why? Because the god said so, that’s why. But was that really the god speaking, or just some twisted echo of mortal flaws and frailties, each one adding to the list of holy pronouncements?’
‘Dangerous words this night,’ Yalad said. ‘Best you go to your room, Prok, and sleep.’
‘With the dinner bell not yet sounded, gate sergeant? Would you have me starve?’
‘Mother Dark is not—’
‘Ah, Mother Dark, yes, who hides unseen and has nothing to say, so the priestesses open wide their legs seeking mundane ecstasy, or at the very least, satiation.’ Prok waved a hand to cut off Yalad’s retort. ‘Yes, yes, I understand, and in her absence and in her silence she in truth informs us of something profound. But truly, Yalad, how many are capable of appreciating that level of subtlety? The cult that makes its rules simple will thrive. Reduced to a phrase or two should suffice. It will be interesting to see what the followers of Father Light will make of their faith – but whatever it is, no matter how simple or complex, you can be sure that Mother Dark will issue faint reply.’
Sandalath chanced to glance towards the kitchen door, and saw Ivis standing there. There was no doubt that he had heard the surgeon’s words, but she could read nothing from his expression. An instant later the bell sounded.
Sighing, Prok worked himself upright. ‘A chair to take me, a table to lean against – what more does a man need? Come, Yalad, join me in fighting off starvation’s dogs one more night, yes?’
The gate sergeant rose and faced Sandalath. ‘Milady?’
She took the hand he offered her, but let his grip slip away once she was on her feet. Turning, she met the eyes of Ivis, and smiled.
He bowed slightly in her direction.
Accompanied by Keeper Sorca, Matron Bidishan, Setyl and Venth, they set off for the dining room. For this evening at least, Ivis would join them.
* * *
Wreneck’s long hunt for the soldiers who had hurt Jinia had not begun well. Winter was a world made gaunt with starvation. But, it now seemed, even endings didn’t quite end.
The warmth of the palm resting upon his brow seemed to hover at a vast distance from the place in which Wreneck had found himself. And where he had found himself, he was not alone. A figure sat beside him, not close enough to reach out and touch – meaning the hand upon Wreneck’s fo
rehead did not belong to this stranger. But the figure was speaking, often in a language he could not understand, and at times the voice was a woman’s, while at other times it belonged to a man. The times when the stranger spoke in Wreneck’s own language, the words were confusing, as if Wreneck was nothing more than a witness, as if the words were not meant for him at all.
But the hand upon his brow was different, because it felt real. Still, it was far away. What lay between was dark, but the darkness roiled, like soot-filled water, and that water was icy cold. He had no desire to set out across it, and so come closer to the warmth, though he understood that such feelings seemed wrong.
‘Besides,’ muttered the stranger at his side in a man’s voice, ‘desire itself is a cruel parent, when the child knows no strength.’
There was some comfort here, anyway, in the midst of his companion’s grown-up words, even when they weren’t meant for him.
‘Men,’ said the stranger, ‘suffer many things. Some they give voice to, all too often, and make of them a dirge that drains the interest from any within hearing. But other sufferings are quiet things, held tight with a hand clamped over the mouth. That hand can silence or suffocate, or both; and there is no proof that the man sought one but not the other. But the idea of choice is unimportant. These kinds of suffering are reluctant to die, and if murder is the desire, strength is the betrayer.’
Wreneck nodded, thinking he understood. It was part of being a man, he told himself, that made the secret suffering so powerful.
As if the stranger had heard his thoughts, he said, ‘Hidden deep inside, it grows fat on what morsels of sweet, deadly imagination the man offers it, and this is a butcher’s tally of fears and dreads.’
Still, the hand upon Wreneck’s brow felt dry, not blood-soaked. Despite the comfort of this unknown companion, it might be worth the journey back, to where lived winter’s pale light. He had been so cold, on those nights, with the forest yielding him little. The world, he now knew, promised nothing.
His friend spoke again, this time in a woman’s voice. ‘If the world was a parent – to all that lived upon it – then love died long ago, after too many ages of mutual cruelty. Burning forests. Dying trees. A child trapped by the flames. The shaking of earth and rock-falls, or houses falling down killing everyone inside. A beautiful baby, dying for no good reason. No, we have lots of reasons to hate the world, and the world has lots of reasons to hate us. It goes on and on, now, and still we keep being cruel to each other.
‘And we pretend we’re winning. Until we lose again. This is how things rise and fall, and how things once strong can end up burned out and in ruin, with weeds growing up from the cracked flagging. This is how proud old women end up dying in the dirt, or just burning up like a straw doll. Things rise and fall, the way the chest does when you’re breathing. And, dear child, you’re still breathing. Shall we count this a victory?’
There were gravestones, and crypts. I walked over mounds. It was cold, everything was cold. The stones, the sky. I found a pit and sank into it. Like a dead man. Until the cold went away.