‘Yes sir.’
‘Since you know all that, sergeant, you needn’t bother with all that ghee you’re lathering my way. Yes, I figured it out. Good for me. But now we’re looking at a new problem, aren’t we?’
‘With our lady gone, it’s down to you, sir, to decide whether we warn the monasteries or not.’
Gelas nodded. He shifted again. ‘This snow’s not melting under me at all, dammit.’
‘That’s not snow, sir, it’s bedrock.’
‘Ah, that explains it then. Where was I? Right. Decisions.’
‘Urusander’s Legion is the enemy, sir. And Bahann’s out from under Raal’s wing, with but three hundred soldiers. If we warn Yannis and Yedan, how many warriors can they muster? Five hundred? Six? Are they good fighters?’
‘They’re utter pigs, Threadbare, and no, I’d not want to mess with them.’
‘Just so. The question then is, sir, is there any tactical value to seeing Bahann and his three hundred cut to pieces, while at the same time forcing the monasteries to relinquish their neutrality and side with us? Big losses for Raal, big gains for the highborn and Mother Dark.’
He studied her. ‘You’re saying it’s obvious, aren’t you?’
‘Sir?’
He pointed at the eye-piece in her hands. ‘Tell me again how that works.’
‘There is a mirror and three lenses perfectly fitted—’
‘Shut your mouth, Threadbare.’
‘Yes sir.’
He slithered back from the ridge, rose and brushed snow from his thighs. ‘Back to the keep. We need to send out a rider.’
‘To warn the monasteries, sir?’ She remained lying on her bed of yellow grasses, not even cold though her cheeks glowed, with clear eyes that reminded him how many decades it had been since he’d last caught the regard of anything as young and as beautiful as this woman.
‘I trust you all understand,’ he said to her, ‘that the hate is entirely mutual.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘But having said that, I’d step into a blade’s path for every damned one of you.’
‘That too, sir, is mutual.’
He grunted. It would have to do.
* * *
After a night of freezing rain, the battlements of Vanut Keep glistened, the ice capturing the morning sunlight in sparks that flared and dripped. But already water had begun flowing down the sheathed stone flanks of the solid walls and squat towers, until it seemed as if the walls were melting.
Word had come of three riders on the road below, bound, presumably, for Kharkanas. Lady Degalla, already mounted and in position at the head of the train, alongside Lady Manalle, now beckoned closer the sergeant of the tower’s watch. ‘Do they bear a standard, Mivik?’
The young Houseblade shook his head.
Manalle said, ‘Then they’re not mine, Degalla. Besides, if Gelas had need of delivering an urgent message, he’d send one, not three, and that one would be Threadbare.’
Degalla’s husband, who along with Manalle’s spouse would be riding behind his wife, barked a laugh. ‘That is an odd name, milady.’
‘She arrived with it,’ Manalle replied. ‘A child of Wardens, I believe, but before they ever acquired that title. The first discoverers of the Vitr did not immediately formalize their obsession, Jureg. In any case, it’s Threadbare who carries the important news.’
Manalle was ever pleased to display the breadth of her learning, which was only occasionally onerous. Her other habit, alas, was to run away with her monologue, quickly leading the conversation astray. Most of the time, Degalla was content to suffer Manalle’s entirely subconscious need to be the centre of everyone’s attention – as if her looks weren’t enough for that – and she was relieved that her husband had simply smiled and nodded and bitten back his serpent’s tongue that could, if he so chose, drip with acerbic venom.