Several days passed. The great convoy continued to inch its way toward Elcho Falling. Maximilian called to him five senior Isembaardian officers and made them commanders within the force, answerable only to Insharah and himself.
The men seemed pleased and gratified at Maximilian’s trust, but he could still sense their disquiet beneath their smiles, and he wondered what they found to talk about at night, around their fires.
At night, the dreams continued for the Isembaardians.
Ishbel had kept mainly to herself since the convoy had begun its journey east. Some hours each day she rode with Salome, who insisted on keeping to horseback despite her advanced pregnancy. Ishbel enjoyed Salome’s company, but she also spent much of the day riding alone, slightly apart from everyone else. She used the time to think: about going home to Serpent’s Nest, or, as it soon would be called, Elcho Falling, and what might await her there; about Isaiah, and what was happening to him in Isembaard; and about Maximilian, and the Twisted Tower.
She had not seen Maximilian privately since that night he’d taken her into the Twisted Tower. They sometimes passed on horseback during the day, and exchanged a nod or a few words. Ishbel had on two occasions shared an evening meal with Maximilian and his commanders in his tent, but had left for her own tent without speaking to him alone. Although either brief, or in the company of others, the time they had spent together had been marked by a new easiness in the other’s presence.
It was indeed, Ishbel mused, as if that terrible scene in the snow where Maximilian had turned his back on her had been so cathartic that it had been a cleansing—if terribly painful—experience for them both.
Twice in the evening, once more alone in her tent, she had sat in a chair close by the brazier and had traveled back to the Twisted Tower. The first time, Ishbel had been nervous that she either would not be able to reach the Twisted Tower, or that she would not find her way home. But she found recalling how to twist her consciousness into the Twisted Tower’s reality easy, almost as if, like the memories contained within each of the objects within the tower, it was already a part of her blood.
Ishbel had not spent long either time within the Twisted Tower. She’d felt a little as if she were intruding, and she kept turning about, half expecting to see Maximilian.
But he was never there.
Ishbel spent a fair bit of her time thinking about Maximilian. It still angered her that he had set Ravenna to one side not an hour after he’d told her that he had to cleave to Ravenna, now. All that pain, all those tears, and he’d walked into the night with Ravenna and said, I am not so sure I really want you, either.
What did Maximilian want from her? She wasn’t sure, and that unsettled Ishbel.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted, either, and that unsettled her even further.
It might have been better, she thought, easier, had they remained utterly estranged.
Ishbel went to Maximilian’s command tent on the fourth night of their march. She had waited until Madarin told her he was alone, and then gathered her courage and her cloak and set off, winding her way through the horse lines and rows of tents until she reached Maximilian’s tent.
Serge and Doyle were standing outside, talking, and both nodded her through when Ishbel raised her eyebrows at them.
“Ishbel.” Maximilian had been sitting at a side table, reading some reports, and he rose as she walked into the tent.
“I owe you these.” Ishbel placed on the table two tiny clover flowers. “It was all I could find. I am sorry.”
Maximilian picked them up, held them a moment, then slid them into the inside upper pocket of his jacket. “You did not stay long, either time.”
“You could feel me inside the Twisted Tower? I have no secrets from you.”
Maximilian gave a small smile. “You still have a few. How far did you go inside the tower?”
“No higher than the third chamber. I still feel as if I am intruding.”
“You are not intruding. How many objects did you pick up?”
“Only a few each time.”
“And their memories?”
“One or two I found easy to retrieve, others more difficult.”
“Maybe you need me with you.”
“Maybe.”
“Ishbel, sit down, there are a couple of things I need to talk about with you.”
He nodded at two chairs by the brazier, and they sat down. Doyle entered, bearing a tray with two steaming mugs on it.
“My lady,” Doyle said, presenting the tray to Ishbel, “my lord usually has some hot tea at this time of the evening, and I thought that you, too, might like a mug.”
Ishbel thanked him and took a mug, and they both waited silently until Doyle left the tent.
“The army is splintering,” Maximilian said, smiling a little as he looked into his steaming mug. “It will not hold together.”
“You do not sound very worried.”
He gave a little laugh. “Oh, I worry. I worry if I am doing the right thing. I worry that I might create a nightmare that will turn and bite me. I worry…”
“Maxel?”
Maximilian sighed. “Ravenna is aiding the generals with her magics. She denies it, but I am almost certain.”
Ishbel didn’t know what to say. This conversation had very suddenly skidded onto thin ice, and she was terrified that she’d fall through as soon as she opened her mouth.
“Ravenna has been a great mistake on my part,” Maximilian said.
Ishbel carefully slid her mug of tea onto the table. She didn’t trust herself to hold it anymore.
The silence strung out, and eventually Ishbel had to speak. “What do you want me to say, Maxel?”
He made a helpless gesture with a hand. “I just wanted to tell you.”
“Why?”
Maximilian avoided the question. “Do you see Ravenna about the camp?”
“From time to time. She and her mother travel much further back in the column. You can understand, perhaps, that I would wish to avoid her.”
“Yes. I can understand that. Ishbel, a few nights ago Drava, who is the Lord of Dreams and Ravenna’s former lover, appeared to me. He warned me about her.”
“He left it a little late.”
Maximilian chuckled. “Yes. He did at that.”
“And did he warn you about me?”
“No. He is, indeed, one of the few who have not.”
Now it was Ishbel’s turn to smile.
“Ishbel,” Maximilian said, “you and I—”
“Don’t.”
“Our lives, yours and mine, have become such a mess, Ishbel.”
“They are perfectly delineated to me at the moment, Maximilian.”
He chuckled again, although not with such amusement this time. “Very well, Ishbel. As you wish.”
He rose, and Ishbel looked at him a little warily.
“There is something you need to see, Ishbel.”
“Oh, the Weeper. I almost forgot.”
Maximilian, who had been reaching into his pack, looked up and almost smiled at the relief in her voice. “Yes, the Weeper.”
He drew the cloth-swathed bundle from the pack and unwrapped it.
“This has caused so many people so much trouble,” he said. “What do you know of it, Ishbel?”
“That in Coroleas it was revered as the most powerful deity their god priests had ever made. That the soul of a very powerful man had gone into its creation. That it moved heaven and earth, and created a few storms along the way, to get to you. That people have died to lay their hands on it.”
“Aye.” Maximilian had uncovered the Weeper now, and it lay in his hands, a beautifully formed bronze likeness of a man. “It has been whispering your name for a while now, Ishbel.” He held it out to her. “Beware, if you touch it, for it may speak to you.”
Ishbel ignored his last comment and took the Weeper into her hands.
Ishbel, the Weeper said to her as soon as she took its full weight. I have waited so long for you. So long…
Maximilian sat watching Ishbel in silence. He was grateful to the Weeper if only for the reason that her study of it gave him the opportunity to watch her.
Of all the things he had got wrong, how could he have mismanaged Ishbel so badly?
She looked up, eventually.
“Maxel?”
“Yes?”
She hesitated. “There is a dark and very complex sorcery that has bound this man’s soul deep within the statue.”
“But…”
“I can unwind it. If you like.”
Maximilian’s heart suddenly pounded so hard he thought it literally had broken out of his chest cavity and into his throat. “You can unwind it?”
“Yes. I can free the man’s soul. Do you want me to do it?”
“Yes, oh gods, yes!”
“Now?”
Maximilian almost said Yes! again, but stopped just as the word leapt into his throat.
“Ishbel,” he said, “how much danger will that cause you?”
She took a deep breath. “Some. The workings of the Corolean God Priests are intricate, and I am certain they have left traps. I am certain, however, that I can evade them.”
“It will be dangerous.”
“Yes.”
Maximilian sat thinking a few moments. “Perhaps we can leave it until we get to Elcho Falling…you would be safer there. Elcho Falling can itself grant you some protection.”
“As you wish.”
“Ishbel?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell who the Weeper is? What he might be?”
Ishbel gave a soft shake of her head. “I’m sorry, Maxel. That I will only know when I reach out my hand to touch his soul.”