She glanced up with lidded eyes. ‘Husband. How goes the killing?’
‘Over with, for now.’
‘Oh. How sad for you.’
‘I should have drowned you in a river long ago.’
‘You’d rather have my ghost haunting you than this all too solid flesh?’
‘Would you have? Haunted me?’
‘Not for long. I’d get bored.’
Gall began unstrapping his armour. ‘You still won’t tell whose it is?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘So it could still be mine.’
She blinked, and a sharper focus came to her regard. ‘Gall Inshikalan, you are fifty-six years old. You’ve been crushing your balls on a horse’s back for four and a half decades-no Khundryl man your age can seed a woman.’
He sighed. ‘That’s the problem. Everyone knows that.’
‘Are you humiliated, husband? I did not think that was possible.’
Humiliation. Well, though he’d never wanted it, he’d done his share of humiliating this woman, who had been his wife for most of his life. He had been fifteen. She had been ten. In the old days they would not lie together even when married, until she’d had her first bleed. He remembered the women’s celebration when that time finally arrived for his wife-they bundled the pale girl away for a night of secret truths, and what had been a frightened child at the beginning of that night came back to him the following dawn with a look of such knowing in her eyes that he was left… uncertain, feeling foolish for no reason, and from that day onward, that he was five years older than her had ceased to be relevant; in fact, it seemed as if she was the elder between them. Wiser, sure of herself, and stronger in every way.
He had worshipped that truth in all the years they had been together. In fact, he realized with a sudden flush, he still did.
Gall stood, looking down at his wife, trying to think of the words he lacked to tell her this. And other things besides.
In her eyes, as she studied him in turn… something-
A shout from outside the tent.
She looked away. ‘The Warleader is summoned.’
Just like that, the moment was gone, closed up tight. He turned away, stepped back outside.
The scout-the woman-he had sent with Vedith stood before him. Spattered in dried blood, dust, slick gore, stinking like a carcass. Gall frowned. ‘So soon?’
‘We crushed them, Warleader. But Vedith is dead.’
‘Did you take command?’
‘I did.’
He tried to recall her name, glancing away as she went on.
‘Warleader, he was leading the first charge-we were arrayed perfectly. His horse stepped into a snake hole, went down. Vedith was thrown. He landed poorly, breaking his neck. We saw how his body flopped as he rolled and we knew.’
Gall was nodding. Such things happened, yes. Unexpected, impossible to plan around. That hoof, those shadows on the uneven ground, the eyes of the horse, that hole, all converging into a single fatal moment. To think too much of such things could drive one mad, could tip one into an all-consuming rage. At the games of chance, the cruel, bitter games.
‘Warleader,’ the scout continued after a moment, ‘Vedith’s command of the ambush was absolute. Every raid set about its task though we all knew he had fallen-we did this for him, to honour him as we must. The enemy was broken. Fourteen hundred dead Bolkando, the rest weaponless and in flight across the countryside. We have nineteen dead and fifty-one wounded.’
His gaze returned to her. ‘Thank you, Rafala. The wing is now yours.’
‘It shall be named Vedith.’
He nodded. ‘See to your wounded.’
Gall stepped back inside the tent. He stood, not sure what to do next, where to go. Not sure why he was here at all.
‘I heard,’ said his wife in a low tone. ‘Vedith must have been a good warrior, a good commander.’
‘He was young,’ said Gall, as though that made a difference-as though saying it made a difference-but it didn’t.
‘Malak’s cousin Tharat has a son named Vedith.’
‘Not any more.’
‘He used to play with our Kyth Anar.’
‘Yes,’ Gall said suddenly, eyes bright as he looked upon her. ‘That is right. How could I have forgotten?’
‘Because that was fifteen years ago, husband. Because Kyth did not live past his seventh birthday. Because we agreed to bury our memories of him, our wondrous first son.’
‘I said no such thing and neither did you!’
‘No. We didn’t need to. An agreement? More like a blood vow.’ She sighed. ‘Warriors die. Children die-’