Sarth, so much the pattern of Uphill Amberlight. I see him still, in those bronze silk trousers, gold-dusted muscles shaped in the tower gymnasium, bronze hair in waist-length lovelocks, gold-shaded eyelids, bronze-gold eyes in that perfect face. Tall, splendid, polished as his tower skills of music and conversation and love.
And the words, the delicate, drawling poison, that he could plant, surer than a Navy gunner, in my heart.
Jealousy, oh, yes. There is an abundance in Sarth of both bile and balm. Sweet work-Mother, how he could make me cringe in those days, after the boys—after I lost my children. After we lost our children; for a man in Uphill Amberlight, children are the only pride. And the worst disaster: a first-born son.
Bitter, deforming, hideous decorum: that only after a House woman’s first girl might her male children live. That cost me my first, and second, and third-born child; and with them my husband’s love.
Small wonder he compounded that poison on Alkhes. To Sarth, no doubt, in his very person as much insult as antithesis. Small and black-avised and wearing what comes handy. No polish, except in warfare. Outlander. Worse than outland; rankless, nameless, certainly spy, probably mercenary, possibly renegade. Taken in, street flotsam, to our infirmary, our men’s tower; named, by the qherrique itself, for the Dark, the holy quarter of the moon. Prisoner, sparring-partner, lover. House-head’s favorite, suave in silk and rubies. Troublecrew, lithe and lethal in killer’s black. In my bed, in my love; twined into my House.
Or was that Assandar? Before he lost his memory along with his money to that River Quarter gang? Coalition general, top-flight mercenary; imperial officer, caravan guardsman, with ties only to soldiery. Deadly in brawl or battle. Deadliest in his wits.
Resurrected with those memories, and locked in battle against me, the House, Amberlight. Is there any dividing them, troublecrew and mercenary, beloved and enemy, Alkhes and Assandar? Less one man than two at once.
And how will Sarth understand that?
Any more than he will understand Sarth?
But for the future, all our futures, that I glimpse—that I am trying to see—the men, these men, are the keystone. They have to understand. What do we have, if they cannot?
* * *
As I write this, it is quiet; camp pitched at last, after more hours of chaos with folk who never had to find a new home every night. Fireglow on the patched dun Dhasdeini tent wall behind me, on shadow and motion I know better than the rhythms of my heart: Hanni with the handful of slates and tallies she already calls Head’s records. Shia yet again stirring pots. Shapes that come and go, prowling our perimeter, Zuri, Azo, Verrith. Troublecrew at work. A snatch of acid voice out in the dust-light. Iatha, stewarding my House.
And the shadows that move inside my tent.
What are they doing? What do they say to each other? Twin shadows, one tall, one small; one with a stately elegance, one with a weapon’s tempered grace. If not now, with a slung arm and three ribs in a cincture of bandages, with bruises, grazes, contusions everywhere, from the huge black eye to the blisters in a stranger’s boots.
I tallied that damage this afternoon. All of it. When he caught us up. Obsessed lunatic, escaping, chased clear of the—catastrophe. Whatever the price. Salving, then abandoning his army, his conquest. Leaving a letter of resignation to the Emperor, before he cast himself, knowingly this time, on his enemies’ mercy. Riding, doubly outcast, incurably stubborn, after us.
And there was water in the last, bigger stream our ramshackle caravan labored over; an upstream pool, relatively clear of stagnance, sheltered by plumes of gold-tinged poplar and clumpy silver-gray hellien. A place to water a horse, and tie it up. And then, behind the shield of Zuri and her troublecrew, strip down my restored man; to purge away travel, battle, an old life.
I put the borrowed soap and towels on a tussock. He had halted, his back to me; trying to decide, forespent and one-handed, what to tackle first. But when I walked up and put both arms around him, he sighed, and leant back into my embrace.
His good hand covered mine. I locked the other over it. How to speak, in the body’s language, of joy beyond what had been mortal loss? I am too tall to burrow in his shoulder; he turned his face, burying it in my neck.
“Oh, Tel . . .”
Loss, and killing grief, and thankfulness, for what we had never thought to have again.
A long time after, he whispered, “I missed you so much . . .”
I started to undo the acrid, mud-smeared laborer’s shirt. Miss him, yes. What words can shape the truth of “miss”? The ache, the physical ache of it, like a cancer, night after night?
“All down the River—in Dhasdein—in the siege—all I could think was—I have to get back . . .”
He was fumbling, one-handed, with what had been an infantryman’s belt.
“Not just you—or this. I never understood what it meant, Tel. The—the House. I never had it before. Not belonging. Not like that.”
House-folk. Community, fellowship. Precious beyond all empathies. Except one.
The sword-ties had trapped his hand. I freed it. Pulled the heavy buckle loose. Undid the trouser strings beneath, found the hard, sunken belly muscles below that, and he caught his breath and pushed backward, twisting to find my mouth.
“Oh, gods, Tel—”
He was dirty and bristly as a porcupine, I could not even hold him tight. And when I let go he swayed, pressing a hand into his side.
“We better stop.” It was breathless as the shaky laugh. “Sorry—no good for any more. Not right now . . .”
I worked the shirt off, to bare the wad of soiled linen, wide as a packhorse’s surcingle, that girdled his ribs. He slid down on another tussock and scrabbled at the ties of the heavy, cross-laced cavalry boots. But when I knelt and set his hand aside he battled it, catching his breath. “No, don’t—Tellurith!”
The knots were solid. Drawing the boot-knife unearthed from some Verrainer’s tent-kit, I felt his hand brush my hair.
Breast-long, crinkle-curled, brandy-brown hair of Amberlight. He had undone it, releasing its mazes, that first night.
“I thought—you’d send me back . . .”
It was less than a whisper. I looked up. Our eyes locked. I could have stayed forever, his hand on my shoulder, my arm across his thigh, he bending over me, gathered between his knees.
“You should have known better than that.”
He lifted the hand to cup my cheek. I touched the splint’s edge, luckily not unseated by zealous handling, and murmured, “I’m sorry. Back on the road . . . Zuri was—upset.”
“I expected it.”
“Eh?”
“I thought they might kill me. Before I got to you.”
“Kill you! Sweet Mother—”
“They had the right.”
I let go the boot, half-off. He stared past me, mouth set, that silky black wing of hair, matted now, falling in his eyes.
“I was troublecrew.” He said it harshly. “One of them. I betrayed the trust.”
“And you’d have let them finish you. For that?”
“I betrayed the House.”
I worked one boot off. Started on the other. We both knew there was no reply to that.
“I had to go, Tel. Nothing could have stopped it. They’d made up their minds. All I could do was go back and try to get some say in it. Try to hold off the worst . . . Gods, do you have any idea what it took