She loved him that way. Supported him. Helped him. Never contested with him for credit for this or credit for that, handed it all into his lap with a whispered: But I don't want that, Strat. You're the mind behind it, you tell me what you need. I do it for your sake. No other in all the world. Yours is the only judgment in the world I trust more than my own. You're the only man I've ever trusted. The only one, ever.
She was quiet, was safety, she understood what he needed and when he needed it. She was the only woman who knew him the way Crit had known him; knew what he did, knew he was the Stepsons' interrogator, unraveled his own pretense that cruelty gave him no sexual thrill at alclass="underline" took the body-knowledge which was his skill at interrogation and at lovcmaking and bent him round again till he could see the torment he inflicted on himself, inner war against his own sensibilities. She took all these things and knit them up and let him turn gentle and sentimental with her, which was his deepest, darkest secret- it was this fragile, inner self she got to, which Crit rarely had. That he could deliver himself to her inside and out, and sleep in her arms in a way he never slept with his lovers-not without an eye and an ear alert, somehow-alert in the way a cynic never sleeps, never trusts, never hopes. Ischade's embrace was a drug, the gaze of her eyes a well in which Straton the Stepson became Strat the man, the young man, Strat the wise and the brave-
Strat the fool to Crit. Strat the traitor to Tempus. Strat the butcher to everyone else he knew.
He flung the saddle up and the bay which was her gift stood quietly while Crit's damn sorrel kicked a stall to ruin and Crit did not come to see to the animal.
He checked the bridle and turned the bay and led it out into the stable aisle, from there to the door.
Perhaps Crit would be waiting there, having known his chances slipping up on him. Perhaps it would be one fast bolt through the ribs and never a chance at all to tell Crit he was a fool and a blackguard.
Strat leapt up to the bay's back and ducked his head, sending the bay flying out that door with a powerful drive of its hindquarters. If a bolt flew past he never saw it. The bay scrabbled for a tight turn on the dirt of the little yard and lit out down the cobbles of the alley, never pausing until he reined it to a walk a block away.
Where he was going he had no idea. Stay away, Ischade had said. He had believed her then, the way he believed implicitly when she spoke in that tone to him, that it was something she understood and he did not. It was something to do with Roxane. It was something that brought a wildness to her eyes and meant hazard to her; but it was a witch-matter, not his kind of dealing. Nothing he could help her with. And he and Ischade had the kind of understanding he had once with Crit, an understanding he had never looked to have with any woman: an unspoken agreement of personal competencies. Witchery was hers. The command of the city was his. And he would not go there tonight, though that was where every bone in him ached to go, to reassure himself that she was well, and that it was not some misapprehension between them that had driven her away. Things had changed. Crit being back, and Tempus-gods knew what was in her mind.
If this visitor makes an end to what is-was-between us-
It's yours to say-
His to say. His to say, by accepting her command to stay away tonight? or by defying it?-He suspected one and then the other with equal force; he agonized over it and called up every nuance of her voice and body and behavior over weeks and months, trying to know what she had meant, whether it was keeping that unspoken pact with her inviolate or defying it and risking (he sensed) his life to pass those wards tonight- that would cancel that doubt he had felt in her. Or confirm it.
Damn Crit. Damn Tempus's coming now, late, when he had everything virtually in hand. Damn their arrival that suddenly undermined everything he had built and poisoned the air between himself and Ischade, the only (he suddenly conceived of it as such), the only unselfish passion he had ever owned, the only peace he had ever conceived of having in the world.
The bay horse picked up its pace again, moved with astonishing quiet over the cobbles and down the long street where the scars of factional violence still lingered.
Factions and powers. He waked suddenly, as if he had been numb since Ischade flung him at Crit and Crit flung him away again. He heard Ischade's voice whispering in his brain: The only man-the only one who understands how fragile things are-
The only one who stands a chance of holding this city-
The only one who might make something of it yet-truer than the weakling prince, truer than priests and commanders who serve other powers-
You're the only hope I have, the only hope this city has of being more than the end of empire-
You might not have their love, Strat, but you have their respect. They know you're an honest man. They know you've always fought for this town. Even llsigis know that. And they respect you if nothing else of Ranke-
-llsigis! he had laughed.
You are the city's champion. The city's savior. Believe me, Straton, there is no other man could walk the line you've walked, and no other Rankan they know fights for this town.
... They respect you if nothing else ofRanke.
Tempus counted him a failure. Tempus arrived in the midst of Roxane's death throes and laid that chaos to his account.
Let Tempus see the truth, let Tempus see that he could pull strings in this web, let him hand peace with the factions to Tempus and let Tempus deal with gods: Tempus was not inclined to tie himself down to one town, one place; Crit loathed the place-but one of Tempus's men next in line, one of Tem-pus's trusted men could find that answer to everything he wanted.
Ischade and Sanctuary.
There had been disturbance downstairs, a door had opened, and Moria hugged the quilts to her in her lonely bed, lay hardly daring to lift her head. The whole night was terrifying with thunders, with the fitful, fretful character of a sky which promised no rain and perhaps the renewed warfare of witches. Her with the Nisi witch. The full scope of disasters possible in that eluded gutter-bom Moria; Moria the elegant, the beautiful, curled into a fetal ball in the soft down comforters and the satin and the lace of the mansion Ischade provided Her most pampered (and hitherto least used) servant. But the depth ofMoria's imagination was better than most-who had seen the dead raised, the fires blaze about Ischade and pass harmless to her- but not to others. And she had every Ilsigi's reason for terror- a dead man had turned up one morning, outside her very door: the skies arced lightnings overhead, terrible storms haunted Sanctuary nights, and there were wails and scratchings round about the house and the shutters, thumps in the pantry and the basement which sent even the hardened staff shrieking down the halls in terror of ghosts and haunts-a murdered man had lived here; he manifested in the basement all wrapped in his shroud, to Cook's abject terror and the ruin of a whole jug of summer pickles. A ghostly child sported in the hall of nights and once Moria had wakened to the distinct and most horrible feeling that something had depressed a body-shaped nest on the feather-mattress beside her. (For that, she had sent a terrified message to Ischade, and the manifestations abruptly stopped.) If that were not enough, there were pitched battles in the streets downhill, fires, maimed men carried past in blood-soaked litters-a fiend had rampaged through the house of the very Beysib lady Moria had visited on Ischade's orders, and Moria knew all too much about the Harka Bey and their dreadful snakes and their way of dealing with people who brought harm to one of their own. She feared jars, jugs, and closets of late; she feared packages and baskets brought in from market (on those days market functioned): she was sure that some viper might lurk there, some Beysib horror come to find Ischade's helpless agent in some moment that Ischade was elsewhere occupied-the Mistress would take a terrible vengeance for such an attack: Moria believed that implicitly; but it was also possible that Moria would be dead and unable to appreciate it.