They exited the hall, Nedurian heading for Rampart Way, and the long walk down into town. He reflected that all this concern about military command would have been funny if it weren’t so pressing and dire – as Malaz Island had no military to speak of.
Oh, there were fighting men and women aplenty; an entire isle of them. But an army? No, that was something else entirely, as he knew full well, having seen the most organized and regimented example of recent times close up.
His duty, then, was to do everything he could to help these fledgling soldiers have a fair chance on the field.
Footsteps behind brought him up short and he turned to see the Dal Hon swordsman Dassem. He nodded a greeting, which the wiry youth returned sombrely, as was his manner.
For a time they walked together in silence. Nedurian enjoyed the cool wind and the view over the harbour. Most vessels, he noted, were still out on raids. Then he looked at the swordsman. ‘Tayschrenn asked me if I was dismayed after what we witnessed in there. What of you? Any second thoughts?’
The youth shrugged his enviably wide shoulders. ‘Hood directed my footsteps here. That is enough for me. As for the personal foibles or inadequacies of any of these people, all that is irrelevant. I am reminded of a story I heard of a duellist in Unta who was considered very boring and dull in his style. He possessed no flair or inspiration – no, how do you say, panache. Everyone mocked him and looked down upon him for it. Yet in bout after bout he emerged victorious. He simply ground down his opponents.’
Nedurian nodded expectantly. ‘And so …?’
Dassem waved a hand. ‘And so, what appears as a weakness may in fact prove a strength. No one can know until contact with one’s opponent is made.’
Nedurian allowed himself a half-smile, and continued down the stone steps. ‘Well … to my mind a good dose of preparation wouldn’t hurt.’
‘Our thinking,’ murmured Dassem, ‘runs on similar lines, I believe.’
Nedurian scratched the scar down his cheek; it always itched in the cold. ‘Oh?’
The dark youth eyed him sidelong. ‘Tell me of the famous Talian military. What in your opinion worked, and what did not?’
* * *
The crossing to the Isle of the Blessed was a boggy stretch of tidal mudflats exposed a few hours a day at each low tide. Heboric waited patiently for the tide to go out, along with a shabby gathering of sick and crippled who sat wrapped in their tattered remnants of clothes on the sands. Some rocked themselves in silent misery, others jabbered insanely to no one. For a time the more hale of them had pawed at Heboric, begging for food or coin, but seeing how the man merely brushed aside their reaching hands, all diseased and rotting, some flowing with pus, the beggars turned away in disgust – no coin could be cadged from this one, even if he bore the mark of a priest of Fener.
Once the waters of the bay became low enough, the day’s gathering of penitents pushed out into the waves. The passage was difficult; some became trapped in the heavy clinging mud. These, the most infirm, called out to their fellows for aid but the passing file, all struggling through the muck, ignored them.
Save for Heboric, who slogged over to the nearest and heaved him free. The man promptly pulled a rusted blade from his clay-smeared rags, demanding, ‘All your coin, fool!’
Heboric gestured down his naked torso to his sodden loincloth. ‘I wear only this wrap, friend – but you are free to search it if you wish.’
The hunched pilgrim flinched from him and floundered away, snarling, ‘What are you? Some kind of freak?’
Heboric watched him go, amusement crooking his mouth.
‘The sick are ever selfish,’ another voice called from farther away, and Heboric turned. A slim hooded form, wrapped in tattered lengths of dirty rags, stood in the waves some distance off.
‘Not all,’ Heboric answered.
This one tilted his, or her, head in acquiescence. ‘True. But none of those will you find on the Isle of the Blessed.
Heboric glanced to the island rising just a few leagues distant. The other struggled onwards to join him. ‘And what of you?’ he asked the stranger.
‘I am as selfish as any other,’ the figure answered, closer now, and from her voice Heboric knew her for a woman. ‘Those,’ she added, ‘who claim not to be selfish are usually lying.’
Heboric nodded his agreement. ‘True. Those who find it necessary to make the claim.’
‘And you?’ the woman rejoined.
Grinning his frog-like lopsided grin, Heboric gestured to his naked form. ‘As you see, I have spent a lifetime acquiring enormous wealth.’
She looked him up and down. ‘Well, I see that you are at least rich in faith. What errand brings a priest of Fener to Poliel’s house?’
Heboric lost his grin and slogged onward, his pace slow to accommodate the woman at his side. ‘This plague. It is unlike our sister of sickness. Its touch seems … different. I would ask about that, and other things.’
‘And you expect answers?’
He shook his head, chuckling. ‘Do I look that much a fool? No, I can only ask. That is all we mortals can do – make the effort. Try. The rest is in the hands of the gods.’ He extended a hand to her. ‘And you?’
She lifted her rag-wrapped shoulders. ‘The truth is the island is my home. It is one of the few places I am welcome.’
Heboric nodded at that. Where else might the afflicted go? ‘Yet you would leave it?’
‘I am not yet ready to let go of the world.’
‘I am told none leave the Isle of the Blessed.’
The woman cocked her wrapped head. Only her eyes peered through, brown and large, and Heboric found them very attractive eyes indeed. ‘Well,’ she allowed, ‘that is at least poetic.’
He smiled. ‘Yet isn’t it dangerous for you? I mean …’ Heboric realized he was treading into uncomfortable ground. ‘That is, some people would fear you as a carrier …’
She nodded. ‘Some do throw rocks and garbage to drive me away. Some have attacked me with staffs and rods.’ She shrugged again, conveying equanimity. ‘But they are not the worst. The worst are those who ask how much for sex.’
Heboric coughed into a fist, quite taken aback. ‘Sex? Really? I mean … not that you are no longer … that is …’
She rescued him from his floundering, saying, ‘It is believed in some circles that sex with an afflicted will make the partner immune.’
Heboric nodded his understanding. ‘Ah … I see. But that is absurd.’
‘Yes. Just like the other belief that sex with a virgin will cure various illnesses, or make the partner younger.’
‘That I’ve heard of,’ Heboric commented, shaking his head.
They had reached the island and climbed a shore of black gravel. Here stood ramshackle huts of sea-wrack and hides. A few small cookfires smouldered about. The inhabitants of the huts scrambled away as they approached, limping, some crawling on no more than stumps. Heboric wondered if they were fleeing in shame.
‘Why do they hide?’ he asked his companion.
‘They are frightened of you,’ she answered. ‘You are obviously strong and healthy. They fear you are here to take from them what little they have.’ She gestured ahead with a hand that may have been wrapped in dirty linen but was quite obviously nothing more than a knot of bone. ‘This way to the house of Poliel.’
They climbed a path of beaten dirt. Crude shrines and altars lined the way, no more than piled stones draped in ragged scarves or covered in wax from countless candles. One larger shrine, tall and humped, like a hood, was obviously dedicated to the god of death. Heboric gestured to it, surprised. ‘Hood?’
‘The Grey One is no stranger to this isle,’ she said, passing on.
They came to a narrow gorge between two tall cliffs pocketed by caves. Again the inhabitants scurried away before them, all bent and limping, some on crude crutches of sticks. It was as if, Heboric mused, he carried the plague or some such thing.