‘—she stood before him – the God of Fear himself – and she faced him down.’
‘It’s truth he speaks,’ a woman called out. ‘I was there. I saw what she did.’
‘Damned right she did!’ another soldier shouted, and soon people were cheering her name – ‘Aline! Queen Aline!’ – as if they’d forgotten she was dead.
I waited until the shouts died down before I spoke again. ‘Would you have her name be lost? Her tale unwritten?’
‘No!’ they yelled, now furious at the very suggestion. ‘NO!’
‘We are the dead,’ I shouted back, striding up the line. ‘We are the forgotten. But Aline’s name – the name of the girl who was everything that was best about this country – her name will not be forgotten!’
‘Aline! Aline!’
‘Do you know why?’
‘Aline! Aline! Aline!’
I turned and faced Morn, but I stared right past him to the thousands of soldiers on the other side of that field and with all the breath in my lungs shouted, ‘Because. I. Will. Not. Allow. Them. To. Forget. It!’
A rumbling was rising up in our troops, growing in strength until it practically vibrated the ground beneath our feet.
‘I may be a dead man, soon to be forgotten, but I will carry Aline’s name on my lips into battle tomorrow.’
‘Aline,’ they repeated, not shouting it now, but speaking it firmly, with unbreakable determination: no longer a name, an oath.
‘I will carry my wife’s name, too, just as each of you will carry the names of those you love best, those who must not be forgotten. Let those names be our battle-cries.’ I gestured to the Avareans. ‘Look at those warriors opposite. See how fierce and strong they are? They do not fear us. And yet from tomorrow until the day they die, those warriors will remember the names we spoke as their blades pierced our bodies. They will know the names of those for whom each of us fought and died. They will know the name of the Queen of Tristia.’
‘Aline! Aline! Aline!’
I looked up at the horde waiting there on that cliff-top a hundred feet above us. ‘And a hundred years from now, when the great-great-grandchildren of these so-called warriors see the name of an obscure little country that once knew songs and dance and love and loss, they will know what the word Tristia really means: it means a nation of heroes.’
The roaring cheers went on for a long, long time, and all the while Morn and I stood watching each other, listening to the sound of the soon-dead rise above fear, above even sorrow.
Only after I was done did Morn finally make the effort to smirk and say, ‘Not bad, Falcio. You must have just a bit of the Bardatti in you.’ As he turned to walk back to his lines, he motioned for me to follow him. ‘I suppose you’ll want to speak to my troops now.’
I remained where I was.
‘No need,’ I said. ‘I already did.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
The Dal Verteri
I slept unexpectedly well that night. Somehow Morn’s speech had brought me a strange kind of peace. He’d been right about so many things, not least that much of what I’d tried to accomplish had been done in a vain effort to make up for my cowardice the day Aline was taken. But while I’d long ago acknowledged that to myself, I realised that Morn had also been right about the reason for my obsession with the rule that a Greatcoat never kneels; I hadn’t known that.
But Morn had been an even bigger fool than I was, to believe I’d be shamed by those truths. I needed to make no apologies for trying to become the man Aline would have wanted me to be. We used to spend hours sitting in the dark at night, huddled under our covers like children, me telling Aline all the stories the Bardatti Bal Armidor had told me about the Greatcoats. ‘Well then, my darling,’ she’d say when she’d finally had enough of my rambling, ‘if it’s all so marvellous, then I suppose we’ll need to find a decent sword and a better coat.’
‘Then who would stay at the farm to protect you?’ I’d asked.
I couldn’t see in the dark, of course, but I knew she’d be smiling in that lopsided way of hers. ‘Me? What makes you think I’m letting you go off to be a Greatcoat when I’m clearly better suited to the role?’ She’d pat me on the cheek. ‘Do look after the goats while I’m away, dear.’
The sound of chuckling woke me, and it took me a moment to realise I was the one laughing.
‘Falcio?’ Ethalia asked, from where she sat a few feet away in the shadows. ‘Nehra’s called for us.’
As I wiped the blurriness from my eyes, she looked as if she’d been sitting there for a while. ‘You didn’t wake me.’
‘You were smiling in your sleep. I didn’t want to take that away from you.’
‘Come here,’ I said.
She got up and walked over, and she let me take her hand in mine, but then gave me a warning glance. ‘Falcio val Mond, if you so much as think of telling me to leave before the battle, I will set my Awe upon you with such force that even you won’t be able to resist it.’
‘How could I?’ I asked. ‘I am perpetually in awe of you.’
She gave me a small smile. ‘Sometimes you’re worse than Brasti.’
I rose and pulled her to me, revelling in the sensations of being close to her, and more, being unashamed of it. I had loved Aline: she had been my wife, and my guide, in life and in death, and I had tried my best to follow her example ever since. I would do so now, too. ‘You seem to be rather a silly woman,’ I told Ethalia. ‘I think a sensible husband might be in order.’
She made one of her eyebrows arch. I wished I could do that. ‘You will let me know when you find one for me, I hope? In the meantime, we’ve kept Nehra waiting long enough.’
She pulled me towards the entrance of the tent, but I held firm for a moment. When she turned and looked at me questioningly, I said, ‘I won’t ask you to leave, Ethalia. If you decide to fight . . . if this is where you choose to meet your end . . . then I’ll be next to you when Death comes, and he’ll have to answer to both of us.’
Ethalia placed her free hand behind my neck. ‘Falcio val Mond! Is the world coming to an end, or are you growing wiser with age?’ Before I could answer she pulled me close and pressed her lips to mine, a kiss so filled with hope that it left no room in me for despair.
‘Well, it’s about time,’ Rhyleis said.
Ethalia and I reluctantly separated. ‘Rhyleis,’ Ethalia sighed. ‘Do you follow us around for no better purpose than to—’
‘I do, in fact,’ she replied with a grin. ‘I will have my great love song from the two of you, even if I have to tie you both to the bed myself.’
‘That sounds much less romantic than you think it does,’ Ethalia said.
The young Bardatti tilted her head. ‘Really? I suppose I’ll have to keep practising. In the meantime, Nehra sent me to get you.’
‘She sent you?’ Ethalia asked.