“Lies!” the Reader hissed, getting slowly to his feet. “She seeks to usurp the Father’s words with lies! Invoking the name of the Darkblade no less!”
“Al Sorna is not the Darkblade!” she shouted as the crowd began to murmur. “He comes to save us. I am Lady Reva Mustor, heir to the Chair of this fief and daughter to the Trueblade. You call me blessed, you believe the Father’s Sight rests upon me. I say it rests upon all of us. And the Father does not reward murder.”
“They shun the Father’s love!” The Reader cast a bony hand at the kneeling captives. “Their presence within these walls weakens us!”
“Weakens us?” Reva picked out the fruit seller who had confronted her earlier. “You! You have a sword. Why haven’t I seen you on the wall?”
The man shuffled and looked around warily. “I have a daughter and three grandchildren, my lady . . .”
“And they’ll die unless we hold this city.” She turned on a priest standing near the steps, a portly man with a thin-bladed sword dangling from his plump hand like a wet twig. “You, servant of the Father, I haven’t seen you either. But this man”-she pointed at Arken-“him I’ve seen, fighting and shedding blood in your defence. Whilst this man”-she pointed at Brother Harin-“works tirelessly to tend our wounded. And this woman . . . ” Veliss’s eyes were wide above the gag, shining bright. “. . . this woman has served this fief faithfully and well for years, and worked without pause or rest to secure this city and ensure all are fed.”
Her gaze blazed at the crowd. “They do not weaken us. You do! You are the weakness here! You come here like the slaves our enemy would make us, bowing down to this lying old man, filling your hearts with easy hate when you know the Father only ever spoke of love!”
She looked at the portly priest once more. “Put that down before you hurt yourself.” He stared at her, his sword falling from his grasp to clatter onto the tiles. She cast her gaze over the other sword-bearers, each dropping his blade as her eyes met their faces, looking away in shame or staring back in wonder.
There was a commotion off to the right as Antesh and Arentes forced their way through the throng, the entire House Guard behind them along with dozens of archers and Realm Guard. Reva held up a hand as they advanced towards the disarmed men, then pointed at the captives. “Free these people, my lords, if you would.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the Reader, his face white with either rage or disbelief. “The cathedral is closed until further notice. Don’t show your face outside it again.” She sheathed her sword and descended the steps towards the Fief Lord, reaching out to him. “I think you need a nap, Uncle.”
He nodded wearily, smiling then blinking in shock, eyes widening in alarm at something behind her. She turned to find the Reader flying towards her, a dagger raised high in his bony hand, yellowed teeth bared in a hate-filled grimace, too fast and too close to side-step or parry. Something blurred in the corner of her eye and the Reader doubled over before her, the dagger scraping a shallow cut on her arm as he collapsed onto the cathedral steps, her grandfather’s sword buried in his belly. He coughed, twitched and died.
She caught her uncle as he fell, cradling his head on her lap, her hand on his chest, feeling the beat of his heart slowing. “Never . . . killed anyone . . . before,” he said. “Glad it . . . turned out to be . . . him.” His hand fluttered to her cheek and she held it there. “Don’t . . . doubt the Father’s love . . . my wonderful niece. Promise me.”
“I won’t, Uncle. Not now, not ever.”
He smiled, his red eyes dimming. “Brahdor,” he whispered.
“Uncle?”
“The man the priest called lord . . . His name . . . Brahdor . . .” The bony hand went limp in her grasp. His eyes still stared up at her but she knew they saw nothing.
Fief Lord Sentes Mustor was laid to rest in the family crypt within the manor walls. By Reva’s order only she and the coffin bearers were present. She had wanted Veliss at her side but the lady was too stricken by the day’s events to attend, stumbling back to the manor white-faced and locking herself in her room. Reva sent the bearers away and sat by the coffin until nightfall. It was a plain pine box, incongruous next to the ornately carved marble of her forebears, something she would have to fix in time. Outside the faint thump of engine-cast stones could be heard as they ate another breach into her wall. Antesh reported that it was only another two weeks away from completion.
She had hoped sitting here with the bones of her ancestors might provoke some vision or insight, a cunning stratagem to win the day when the final stone fell. But all she earned was a cold behind and a sense of loss so great it felt as if some invisible hand had scooped out her insides.
She rose and went to the coffin, touching her fingers to the unvarnished wood. “Good-bye, Uncle.”
Veliss opened the door at the seventh knock, red-eyed and pale. A ghost of a smile played on her lips before she turned back, leaving the door open. Reva closed it behind her, watching Veliss sit at her desk where a piece of parchment waited, half-covered in her fine script. “My formal letter of resignation,” she said, picking up the quill. “I think I’ll take you up on that horse, and the gold. When this is all over, naturally. I hear the Far West offers many opportunities . . .”
She fell silent as Reva came to place her hands on her shoulders, eyes raising to meet hers in the mirror as they lingered. “I thought it was a stain.”
Reva bent to press a kiss to her neck, exulting in the thrill of delight as she provoked a gasp. “It washed.” She took Veliss’s hands and drew her towards the bed. “Now it’s a gift.”
Is it wrong? she wondered the following morning. To feel so good at a time such as this? She had been fighting to keep the smile from her face all through the council with her captains, scrupulously avoiding catching Veliss’s eye for fear of a betraying grin or blush. Her uncle dead, the Reader slain on the steps of his own cathedral and the city on the verge of destruction, but all she could think about was the wondrous night before.
“It’s just not enough,” Antesh was insisting to Arentes, his knuckles thumping onto the map on the library table. “We’ll hold them at the breaches for no more than a few hours, and all the time you can bet they’ll be making a fresh assault on the walls to draw off our strength.”
“What else can we do?” the old guard commander asked. “This city’s defence rests on its walls. There is no provision, no plan for anything else. My lady”-he turned to Reva-“it might help if we had some notion of how long the Dar-, Lord Al Sorna will take in getting his army here.”
Reva stopped the amused frown before it reached her brow. He believed me. Seeing the intent gaze of Lord Antesh she realised the old guardsman was not alone. They actually think the Father has sent me some holy vision. “Such . . . details were not revealed to me, my lord,” she replied. “We must plan on holding this city as long as possible.”
Antesh sighed, returning his gaze to the map. “Perhaps if we build towers here and here, just behind the new walls. Pack them with archers to loose down at them as they rush through . . .”
Reva surveyed the map as he went on, noting how circular it was, the empty space of the square in the centre like the bull’s-eye of an archer’s target, the surrounding streets ordered in a circular pattern radiating outwards. She reached for a charcoal stub and began to draw on the map. “We have been thinking on too small a scale,” she told the two lords, tracing a series of black circles through the streets, each one smaller than the last. “Not two inner walls, six. Each to be held for as long as possible. Archers on every rooftop. The streets are narrow so their numbers won’t matter so much. When one wall is breached, we fall back to the next.”
Arentes looked at her plan for a good while before commenting, “It’ll mean tearing down a quarter of the city.”