‘That was a fine thing to do,’ said Brys.
‘Seemed that way. Until the locals started getting sick. Something in the wool, maybe. Fleas, a contagion. We didn’t even find out, not for days-we stayed away, giving the chief time and all that, and the village was mostly behind a fringe of thick mangroves. And then, one afternoon, a lookout spied a lone villager, a girl, staggering out on to the beach. She was covered in sores-that sweet, once smooth skin-’ He stopped, shoulders hunching. ‘Nok moved fast. He threw every Denul healer we had on to that island. We saved about two-thirds of them. But not the chief. To this day, I wonder what he thought as he lay dying-if an instant of calm spread out to flatten the storm of his fever, a single instant, when he thought that he had been betrayed, deliberately poisoned. I wondered if he cursed us all with his last breath. Had I been him, I know I would have. Whether we meant to or not-I mean, our intentions didn’t mean a damned thing. Offered no absolution. They rang hollow then and they still do.’
After a long moment, Brys returned his attention to the canal waters below. ‘This all flows out to the river, and the river into the sea, and out in the sea, the silts collected back here end up raining down to the bottom, down on to the valleys and plains that know no light. Sometimes,’ he added, ‘souls take the same journey, and they rain down, silent, blind. Lost.’
‘You two keep this up,’ Cuttle said in a growl, ‘and I’ll do the jumping.’
Fiddler snorted. ‘Sapper, listen to me. It’s easy to listen and even easier to hear wrongly, so pay attention. I’m no wise man, but in my life I’ve learned that knowing something-seeing it clearly-offers no real excuse for giving up on it. And when you put what you see into words, give ’em to somebody else, that ain’t no invitation neither. Being optimistic’s worthless if it means ignoring the suffering of this world. Worse than worthless. It’s bloody evil. And being pessimistic, well, that’s just the first step on the path, and it’s a path that might take you down Hood’s road, or it takes you to a place where you can settle into doing what you can, hold fast in your fight against that suffering. And that’s an honest place, Cuttle.’
‘It’s the place, Fiddler,’ said Brys, ‘where heroes are found.’
But the sergeant shook his head. ‘That don’t matter one way or the other. It might end up being as dark as the deepest valley at the bottom of your ocean, Commander Beddict. You do what you do, because seeing true doesn’t always arrive in a burst of light. Sometimes what you see is black as a pit, and it just fools you into thinking that you’re blind. You’re not. You’re the opposite of blind.’ And he stopped then, as he saw that he’d made both hands into fists, the knuckles pale blooms in the gathering night.
Brys Beddict stirred. ‘I will see the crews sent out to the imperial well tonight, and I will roust my healers at once.’ He paused, and then added, ‘Sergeant Fiddler. Thank you.’
But Fiddler could find nothing to be thanked for. Not in his memories, not in the words he had spoken to these two men.
When Brys had left, he swung round to Cuttle. ‘There you have it, soldier. Now maybe you’ll stop worshipping the Hood-damned ground I walk on.’ And then he marched off.
Cuttle stared after him, and then, with a faint shake of his head, followed his sergeant.
Chapter Ten
Is there anything more worthless than excuses?
Emperor Kellanved
I t was the task of a pregnant woman’s sister or, if there were none, the nearest woman by blood, to fashion from clay a small figurine, its form a composite of spheres, and to hold it in waiting for the child’s birth. Bathed in the blood and fluids of the issue, the human-shaped vessel was then ritually bound to the newborn, and that binding would remain until death.
Fire was the Brother and Husband Life-Giver of the Elan, the spirit-god with its precious gifts of light, warmth and protection. Upon dying, the Elan’s figurine-now the sole haven of his or her soul-was carried to the flames of the family hearth. The vessel, in its making, had been left faceless, because fire greeted every soul in the same manner; when choosing, it favoured not by blunt features-which were ever a mask to truth-but upon the weighing of a life’s deeds. When the clay figurine-born of Water, Sister and Wife Life-Giver-finally shattered in the heat, thus conjoining the spirit-gods, the soul was embraced by the Life-Giver, now the Life-Taker. If the figurine did not break, then the soul had been rejected, and no one would ever again touch that scorched vessel. Mourning would cease. All memory of the fallen would be expunged.
