Galen nodded and left. Sendarus finished dressing and mounted his horse.
“You wouldn’t be leaving without me, would you?”
It was the last voice he wanted to hear at that moment. “Your Highness, you’re up early. Word travels quickly.”
“Word of disaster always travels quickly,” Charion said levelly. She was dressed in full armor and mounted on a hack, not her usual ceremonial pony. “Are you aware that in the whole campaign so far, the only serious loss we’ve suffered has been the destruction of your cavalry and light infantry?”
“Only four companies of horse, your Highness,” he said between his teeth. He could imagine the message she would already have sent to Areava by carrier bird. He would have to send one of his own to put things in the proper perspective.
Which is? he asked himself. Remember, you rescued Daavis. That’s the most important thing.
“I still have four regiments, including three of the knights,” he told her.
“I can give you another regiment, plus two regiments of infantry.”
“What does that leave you to protect the city?”
“Most of my archers, and a goodly number of swordsmen.”
Sendarus wanted to tell her what she could do with her offer, but bit his tongue. Any extra troops at this point would be welcome, and another regiment of horse would bring his cavalry back up to full strength.
“Thank you. I accept.”
“And I will lead them myself,” she added.
Sendarus glared at her, but she did not look away.
“That’s the price,” she said.
“You will be under my command,” he said.
“Of course. You wear the Key of the Sword. Galen Amptra explained the situation to me very clearly yesterday. Do you agree?”
Sendarus could not say the word, but nodded.
“Good. My troops will be ready in an hour.”
“We leave in half an hour,” he said and wheeled his horse away from her.
Salokan’s generals, their confidence boosted by their recent victory, urged him to turn back.
“We’ve proven we can take on and defeat Areava’s army. Let’s finish the job and take Daavis.”
But Salokan did not listen to them. He understood the difference between winning a skirmish and winning a battle. He also understood that even if he met Areava’s main force and defeated it, his own army would probably be so damaged it would not be fit to start another siege or execute a successful city assault. He had already swallowed his pride.
Besides, if Grenda Lear tried to invade Haxus in retaliation for his invasion, he thought he had a better than even chance of beating them back, and then the option of returning to Hume with a fresh army would be a real possibility. An autumn campaign held the advantage of leaving a winter between any counter move from Kendra. Maybe he should have thought of that before starting his late winter offensive.
Well, I lose and learn, he told himself. Unlike his father, who lost and then lost again. Whatever happened, he was not going to do that.
Chapter 28
Father Powl was in the primate’s chambers— his chambers, he constantly reminded himself—kneeling at his prayer stool. His eyes were closed and his mind scurried like a cockroach through all his memories of Giros Northam, all the words he had ever spoken, all the lessons he had ever imparted, all the clues he had hinted at about the greatest secret of their religion.
“God has a name,” Northam had once told him, “and the name is everything that God can be.”
And another time he had told Powl, “A single word reveals all there is to know about God.”
So the name of God is a single word?
His gripped his hands so tightly together the fingers were pinched white, and he prayed so fiercely the veins in his temples stood out like tracery in a stained-glass window.
“One secret, Lord, is all I ask,” he prayed. “One secret to show me all your wonder. One secret to let me carry on your work. All these years I have been your faithful servant.”
He waited for a voice, a whisper, a sign, anything at all that would point him in the right direction, but all he heard was the silence of his own great sin.
“Oh, Lord, I am a weak man, I confess. But I would be strong for you if only you would let me.”
He tried to picture in his mind what God would be like. When he was a callow youth, God had come to him so many times in his dreams his face was more familiar than those of his fellow novitiates. Why now, when he was temporal head of God’s own religion, was his face turned away from him? Was his sin that great?
“Show me your face, God, so that I may call you by your name.”
And an answer came so suddenly his eyes opened in surprise. “When you call me by my name, you will see my face.”
The voice had been his own.
Dejanus pinned down Ikanus’ arms as he thrust into her. He did not look into her face, but stared straight ahead. The woman grunted underneath his weight, and he wondered if it was in pleasure or in pain. She never said, but accepted him like the whore she was.
When he came, he collapsed on top of her, panting like a dog after a chase. Ikanus slid out from underneath him and quickly dressed.
“What’s the hurry?” he asked.
“I am still on shift.”
“The landlord won’t mind. He knows who I am.”
Ikanus did not answer, but hurriedly left the small room on the first floor of the Lost Sailor Tavern that the landlord had set aside for just such meetings.
After he caught his breath, Dejanus sat up and took a long swig from the flagon he had left on the floor. It occurred to him that Ikanus did not like him very much. Well, it did not matter, as long as she kept her mouth shut and her legs open. He grinned at that.
Oh, you’re a clever prick, he thought to himself.
He lay back down on the bed and finished drinking the wine.
Father Powl pulled out On the Body of God from the bookshelf by his bed. He had been through it a dozen times in the last few months. He carefully turned each page, scanning for any mark, any sign, that Northam may have left and that he had missed. He did not read the words, the words meant nothing to him anymore, but he hoped there was some meaning in the book itself, in the way it was set out or designed—in a misplaced curlicue or a hanging sentence or an odd illustration.
Please, God, let me find the sign.
He finished the book and threw it aside, and from the shelf got The Meditations of Agostin. This was a much larger book, but he scrutinized each page minutely. When he was finished with that, he went through The Seven Penances of a Great Sinner, and then the life of Margolayus, the first primate, and every other book that Northam had thought special enough to keep in his own chambers.
Occasionally, he did come across a marginal note in Northam’s hand, usually next to some underlined phrase in the text, but in every case it was nothing more than some pitiful revelation, like Now I understand! or See Seven Penances part the first or even Remember this!
At one point he had listed all the marginalia and the underlined phrases, thinking there may have been some code hidden in them, but in the end he knew they were just what they seemed, trite observations from a lazy meditation.
Oh, Giros, I never knew your mind was so small. How I remember looking upon you as the wisest of the wise.
He hurled the last book across the chamber in anger. He placed his head in his hands, filled with self-pity. He wanted to burst into tears, but knew he could not cry. He had not cried for so long he did not think he knew how anymore.