‘Well,’ Brasti smiled evilly, ‘the Greatcoats have gone straight for the hells since he picked his new First Cantor.’
I’d hoped the King would choose Valiana, though her new status as Duchess of Rijou made that politically complicated. Quilatta was the next most likely given she’d been a Cantor before. ’Who did he choose?’ I asked.
He turned and nodded to Chalmers, who was studiously looking down at her plate.
I was about to say something stupid when Ethalia squeezed my hand so hard I felt my knuckles crack together.
Chalmers stared at me with an uncharacteristically pleading look in her eyes. ‘You have to take the job back, Falcio. The other Greatcoats hate me! Most of them won’t talk to me and the ones who do only tell me how unqualified I am – which is true, by the way. And it’s not just them, either: I’ve had three Dukes already make veiled threats to me and the King just tells me it’s up to me to deal with them.’
I couldn’t help but smile at that.
‘It’s not funny!’ she said.
‘Chalmers, having everyone hate you and threaten your life at every turn is precisely how you can tell you’re the right person to be the First Cantor of the Greatcoats.’
She set her plate down on the ground. ‘Great. Any advice? Or should I just slit my own throat now and save my enemies the trouble?’
Without meaning to, my gaze went to Kest and Brasti. ‘Find two friends,’ I told her. ‘Make sure they’re belligerent and annoying and that they get you into trouble at every turn.’
‘And get you out of it,’ Kest said.
‘That, too. Most of all, though, pick two people for whom you’d gladly die.’
Brasti looked back at me, for once without a trace of smugness or irony. ‘And who’d just as gladly die for you.’
Chalmers rolled her eyes at us, but then asked, ‘Are you really leaving the Greatcoats?’
‘For now,’ I said.
‘It isn’t fair. All of you are abandoning me.’
‘All of us?’ I looked at the others. ‘What are you—?’
‘I’m the Duchess of Rijou now,’ Valiana said, ‘although I suspect that foetid worm Shiballe already has a hundred spies and assassins waiting for me.’
I reached out a hand to take hers for a moment. ‘Try not to kill them all. You’ll need someone to rule over.’ I turned to Brasti. ‘And you? Is Darriana really crazy enough to marry you?’
‘She is – but not for a while yet. Darri’s got it into her head to reform the Dashini. She thinks there might be records in the old Dashini monastery that describe how their Order functioned in the past when they were spies for the country rather than just assassins.’
‘Please tell me you’re not going to become a Dashini, Brasti.’
I’d only been joking, but he looked oddly uncomfortable. ‘Actually, I’m . . . well, I’m joining the Rangieri.’ He held up a hand. ‘For a while, at least.’ He looked west to the far mountains. ‘There are only three of them left, at least that we know of, and with everything happening out there, someone needs to start keeping an eye on the long view.’
The notion of Brasti being the one who thinks to the future terrified me no end. ‘And you?’ I said to Kest.
He opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t get the chance, because Brasti had got to his feet, chortling gleefully.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he announced, ‘but Kest -Murrowson here is – wait for it! – becoming a fucking Knight!’
Valiana and Ethalia both sighed and I got the sense this had been discussed at length on their journey here. Still . . .
‘A Knight?’ I asked.
‘It’s not as simple as Brasti makes it sound. Sir Elizar approached me after the battle.’ He paused as though trying to remember a prepared speech. ‘How many times have we found the country weakened from within because the Knights were manipulated or tricked into following the wrong path? How many lives could we have saved if they were – well, protectors rather than thugs?’
‘It’s a nice thought, Kest, but—’
‘Hear me out. These are all fighting men, usually second or third sons with weapons and armour and skill but no sense of what that should mean. They do the things they do because—’
‘Because they’re arseholes,’ Brasti said.
‘No, because they’re seeking something they don’t know how to find.’ Kest looked at me. ‘Falcio, I know something of what it’s like to always be seeking purpose by following someone else.’
‘Well . . .’ I really couldn’t wrap my head around it. ‘Which Duchy do you plan to join?’
‘None of them,’ he replied. ‘I’m going on a journey, with Sir Elizar and the others, to reform the Honori. We’re going to start a new Order of Knights, Falcio, who will serve the smaller towns and villages across the country.’
‘Hamlet Knights,’ Brasti said, as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
‘It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.’ I stood up to stretch my legs. Ethalia joined me. ‘And you?’ I asked. ‘How does the Saint of Mercy plan to spend the next few years? Healing the sick? Ending all wars?’
She smiled. ‘I have no illusions of saving the world. My ambitions are slightly narrower. There’s a particular swordsman who is in dire need of saving.’
‘If by “saving”, you mean . . .’ The words faded before they even left my mouth. Standing there, under that sky, not a hundred yards from where Aline lay buried next to her father, the weight of it all suddenly came down upon me. I wasn’t angry or even sad. I was simply exhausted. The very act of taking air into my lungs felt so full of effort and so lacking in any significance that I wondered if I could just stop breathing. But Ethalia was looking at me so I summoned the energy to say, ‘I don’t suppose you have a way to start my heart beating again, the way you once did for Kest, do you?’
She reached out and took my hand between both of hers and placed it against her chest. I could feel the strong, steady beat of her heart. It served only to make my own feel feeble. ‘I don’t think it’s—’
She pulled my hand down lower, to her belly.
‘What are you—?’
And then, suddenly, without warning . . . there.
A small, sudden pressure against my fingertips.
I looked at Ethalia and she was smiling. My eyes went down to her belly and only then did I notice the slight roundness which had been hidden by her coat.
‘I believe I warned you some time ago that there were . . . complications we needed to discuss.’
What I had felt hadn’t been a beat, but a kick.
And again.
Thunder.
Life.
‘A daughter, I think,’ Ethalia said.
Brasti, Kest and Valiana stood and joined us. Brasti removed his bow from over his shoulder and placed it in on the ground next to us. ‘My bow is hers,’ he said, without a trace of sarcasm for once, and knelt down.
‘Greatcoats don’t kneel,’ I reminded him but he just smiled back at me. His gesture was a gift: not an act of weakness or shame, but of love.
‘My blade is hers,’ Valiana said, and she too knelt.
Kest laid his shield down next. ‘My life is hers.’
‘I—’