‘You’d better be a fucking hallucination, because if you’re the God of Valour I’m going to kick the shit out of you.’
He laughed and brought his small fists up into guard. ‘Shall we have a bout, First Cantor?’
I was seriously considering punching my God in the face when a loud hiss was accompanied by a sudden painful scratch on the back of my hand. I looked down to see the source of the punishment for my blasphemy.
‘You brought the fucking cat?’
‘When I told her I was coming to visit you, she wanted to come along.’
As if to prove his point, the little wretch hopped up on my lap and promptly went to sleep. She was warm, though her fur was a little wet and stank of – well, cat, which made it somewhat harder for me to convince myself that this was all a hallucination. ‘I thought you were dead. I thought the Blacksmith’s God killed you.’
Tommer – no, Valour – tilted his head as he stared back at me. ‘Faith has to go somewhere, Falcio. It can’t just disappear. It’s not magic, you know.’
‘Are you trying to be funny?’
‘I died, as did the others, but we come back, over time. Death returned first – of course – and Love was quick to follow. I was perhaps a little late.’
That confirmed something I’d suspected for some time, but still I said, ‘You’re a liar. You might be a God, but you aren’t Valour.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because Gods appear to us wearing the faces of those who most represent their aspect to us.’
‘And who best personifies Valour for you, First Cantor?’
‘You know the answer.’
He sighed. ‘I would show you her face, Falcio, but you won’t let me.’
That drew a hoarse chuckle from me. ‘Let you? Since when do mortals command the Gods?’
‘Since always – I thought you understood that.’ He reached out a hand towards me. ‘Give me leave, Falcio; let me show you her face. She was so valiant, so determined to live up to your example, to—’
‘No!’ I screamed, and the cat scratched me a second time before leaping from my lap.
‘Can you not set aside your anger for one instant? Just for one moment, to marvel at who she was? At what she did? This country you have fought so hard for sits on the precipice, Falcio. It needs valour now more than ever.’
‘Then maybe you should stop letting those who show it die all the time.’
‘It’s not the Gods who commit such acts. No God made Ossia plot to kill her own son, or make you try t—’
‘Get out,’ I shouted, and then less coherently, ‘Get out! Leave me alone, damn you! Or give me a damn sword so I can kill you myself!’
His expression showed no sadness nor anger as he stared back at me – I suppose neither emotion meant much to him. Instead, he walked to the cell door, opened it as though it were unlocked and walked out. He left it ajar.
I ran to it and slammed it shut, tripping as I did and hitting my head against the bars. I fell to my knees. ‘Stay away from me,’ I said, more to myself than anyone else, for both Valour and the cat were gone. ‘And don’t do me any damned favours. I wouldn’t need your help if I wanted to escape!’
‘Well, I suppose that’s good, because I’m not here to break you out.’
I looked up and saw Kest, standing outside the cell in the shadows. We stared at each other for a while, then I asked, ‘I don’t suppose you saw a God on your way here?’ I held out a hand, palm facing down just below the height of my chest. ‘Little fellow? Goes around with an alley cat?’
He shook his head.
Damn. I’d done exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t do. I’d let myself be berated by my own insanity. I went back to sit on my cot. ‘Well, then, what is it you want?’
‘I meant what I said, Falcio. I’m not here to help you escape.’
‘Did I ask you to?’
‘You shouldn’t need to!’ He made the words sound like an indictment.
‘I imagine it took some convincing to get Brasti not to do something rash.’
‘Brasti saw reason.’ Kest paused, then added, ‘Once he regained consciousness.’
Despite everything that had happened, the thought of what had doubtless been a number of colourful exchanges between the two of them brought a smile to my face.
‘You should know that Valiana wanted to free you,’ Kest said.
‘You stopped her?’
‘I did.’
‘Thank you for that.’
‘It wasn’t easy,’ he said. ‘When I wouldn’t let her, she very nearly allowed the adoracia to take her over so that she could fight me. Still, that was nothing compared to Ethalia.’
I had wondered that she hadn’t come to see me, though I had no idea what we’d say to each other, not after what I’d almost done. ‘Did she threaten to use her Saint’s Awe on you?’
‘She threatened a great many things – I have to say, for a Saint of Mercy she’s developed a rather loose interpretation of the job.’
I leaned back on my cot, the rough-spun linen sheet cool through the thin fabric of my shirt. ‘You have to keep them from trying to free me, Kest – all of them. If they do something foolish—’
He slammed a fist against the bars, sending a clanging sound through the cell. ‘I don’t need you to explain the state of the world to me, Falcio! Do you think I’m unaware how precarious you’ve made things? They would have rounded up and hanged every Greatcoat in Aramor already, were it not for the dubious goodwill of a boy not yet sixteen who is utterly in love with Trin!’
‘Well,’ I said, allowing my own anger to slip through, ‘it probably helps that you fucking saved her.’
He gave no reply to that, and for a long while, all I could hear was the soft in-and-out of his breathing, so perfectly even, so controlled. There was something reassuring about that. It was only because I was listening so closely that I realised he’d begun to cry.
‘He made me promise, Falcio.’
Despite the tears, the words had been spoken without ire, with barely any emotion.
‘Who made you promise – promise what?’
‘The King.’
I got up from the cot and faced him. ‘King Paelis made you promise to stop me killing Trin?’
‘That night, before the Dukes came for him . . . He called me in before he saw you. He gave me my mission then.’
‘You said your mission was to help me,’ I said, acutely aware of the accusation in my voice. ‘To help me find his Charoites—’
‘No, you just assumed that my purpose was to protect you, and I allowed you to believe that because I . . .’ He hesitated. ‘Because that’s how it’s always been between us. But that’s not the command the King gave me.’
‘Then what—?’
‘“Stop him”,’ he said to me. ‘“If the time comes . . . If Falcio abandons the law, you have to be the one to stop him. That is the final command I give you, Kest Murrowson though it breaks both your heart and mine”.’