Ishbel sat relaxed on her horse, allowing the animal to amble at its own pace beside the great convoy of soldiers and equipment. She rode ten paces or so to one side of the convoy, slightly distanced from it not only physically, but emotionally as well (Madarin, riding five paces behind her, was such an easy and accepted part of her life that she didn’t consider his silent presence an intrusion). Partly this was because she wanted to think over the visits of Lister and Ravenna, and partly it was because she was a little unsettled by the arrival of Garth and Egalion. She hadn’t spoken to either of them since their brief, initial meeting, yet knew that by now Maximilian must have told them all that had happened.
The loss of their daughter.
Her affair with Isaiah.
His with Ravenna. Ishbel’s hidden identity as Archpriestess of the Coil, and her tie by blood to the Persimius family.
Elcho Falling.
Ravenna was a troubling element in the mix. Ishbel knew that Garth and Ravenna had worked together to free Maximilian from the Veins eight or nine years ago, and that they had been very good friends. Given Ravenna’s own hatred of Ishbel, and Garth’s previous dislike of her, Ishbel did not think Garth would think much more of her now, particularly not once Maximilian had done with his tale.
It was a shame, because Ishbel was tired of disliking him, and thought that he could well be a good friend.
“Wake up, my lady. You are about to fall off your horse.”
Startled, Ishbel snapped out of her reverie. Garth Baxtor had ridden his horse up alongside her, and was now regarding her with a mix of careful friendliness and anxious uncertainty.
“Garth,” Ishbel said, not knowing how else to continue.
“I should retract my words about the falling off,” Garth said. “You have gained some fine horsewoman’s skills since last I saw you, my lady.”
Ishbel managed a small smile. When first she’d left Serpent’s Nest to travel west with Maximilian she’d barely been able to sit a horse without falling to an ungracious heap on the ground.
“I have had many months’ practice since then, Garth.” Ishbel paused. “And, please, call me Ishbel. I am sorry I ever snapped at you for being too familiar.”
The wariness in Garth’s eyes relaxed fractionally. “Ishbel, then.”
He lapsed into silence, and for a few minutes they rode in an increasingly awkward quiet.
“Has Maximilian told you—” Ishbel began.
“Yes. He spent last night with Egalion and myself. Ishbel, what a tale. I…had no idea…”
“You must think poorly of me.”
“No. Not at all. Not now having heard so much of who Maxel is and will be, and of who you are and were, and of how the both of you were manipulated by so many around you. Vorstus…I had no idea…I cannot believe how Maxel has not taken a knife to him. And Lister, and what he did to you…Ishbel, it has been a tragedy.” He thought a moment. “And the greater tragedy is that you and Maxel are now estranged.”
Estranged, thought Ishbel. Such a stiff word for what has happened between us.
And how inappropriate, she thought, with a little start of self-realization. Currently she and Maximilian were at their least “estranged.” They’d been far more estranged when they’d shared a bed and a marriage.
She gave a shrug as her only answer.
“You know that once I was opposed to your marriage,” Garth said.
Ishbel gave a nod.
“I wish…” Garth said, then trailed off. “This is very awkward,” he finished.
Ishbel looked at him at that. “I had thought you would dislike me even more once Maxel had told his tale.”
“No,” he said. “It has made me see, made me wish, that you and Maxel—”
“It won’t happen, Garth. Too much has gone wrong between us. There has been too much tragedy. No one survives that.”
“You and he should—”
“No, Garth. No. It is better the way it is now.” Ishbel smiled wryly. “We have never got on so well, or so honestly, as when we are good friends working together toward a single cause rather than lovers or spouses. At least we can be at peace this way.”
Garth thought that “at peace” didn’t quite manage to describe either Ishbel or Maximilian right now, but he let it pass. He did not want to interfere. Whatever happened was up to the gods.
“I spoke with Ravenna this morning,” Garth said.
“Ah.”
“I thought at the time that she has changed so much, but then, after some reflection, I wondered if she had changed at all. I don’t know. She was so unknowable even as a girl, and so determined always to get her own way.” He fell silent again. “Whatever friendship that once was between us has gone, I think.”
Ishbel didn’t respond to that.
“I feel for Venetia,” said Garth. “She is a woman I admire greatly.”
“I have had little to do with her,” said Ishbel, “but from my few brief meetings, yes, I think I would like her, too. I cannot believe she could have a daughter like Ravenna. Who on earth did she choose as the father?”
Garth gave a funny half smile. “I think Ravenna’s father is my father. We’re half-brother and sister.”
Ishbel stared at him. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again.
“I cannot be sure,” said Garth, “but my father has always been awkward and secretive about Venetia—and she about him. I think that when he was younger, he must have gone to Venetia to talk with her about her herbal cures, and she seduced him, perhaps, much as Ravenna seduced Maxel, but without the ulterior motive.”
“Ulterior motive?” Ishbel said.
“Ishbel…Ravenna said something to me this morning. She said that she had conceived the child not to trap Maxel, but to save Elcho Falling.” Should Maximilian refuse to see Ishbel for what she truly was, but this Garth did not say.
Ishbel sighed. “Garth, I do not wish to speak about Ravenna’s child.”
“I’m sorry, Ishbel.” Garth thought of the child Ishbel had lost, and both her and Maximilian’s distress over it. Ravenna’s pregnancy could not be easy for Ishbel. “I feel I should also apologize for Ravenna.”
“You have no need to apologize for her, Garth!”
“Nonetheless, someone has to, and it was I who involved her in Maximilian’s life in the first instance. Oh gods, Ishbel, I can’t believe he slept with her!”
Ishbel laughed at the affront in his voice. “I had thought that you’d sympathize with her.”
Garth shook his head. “Ravenna has ever been her own person.” He glanced at Ishbel. “I was quite desperately in love with her myself, you know, when we were young.”
“Then you had a lucky escape. Particularly if she is, as you think, your half-sister.”
He laughed, and they looked at each other.
“I think we might be friends, Ishbel,” Garth said.
“That would be a relief, Garth. You are too likeable for me to be bothered trying to maintain a dislike of you.”
They shared a smile, then looked around at the sound of hoofbeats behind them. Maximilian rode up, pulling his horse in on the other side of Ishbel’s.
“No knives?” he said.
“No knives,” Garth and Ishbel said as one, and they shared another smile.
They chatted about inconsequential things, before Ishbel finally asked Maximilian where Lister and Vorstus were within the column.
“Far enough away that I cannot see them,” Maximilian said, somewhat shortly.
“Lister came to see me last night,” Ishbel said. “To make friends, I think. I don’t know. Maybe to gauge my residual loyalty. Perhaps to tell me what he thought I ought to be doing.”
“More likely the latter,” Maximilian said. He glanced at the satchel tied to the back of Ishbel’s saddle. “Have you touched the crown?”
“Yes,” said Ishbel. “It is a grim thing.” She shot him a look, and a brief smile. “It had a talk with me.”
“I don’t want to know what it said,” said Maximilian. Then he, too, smiled. “Strange. I didn’t hear you run screaming from your tent at the sound of its voice.”
“We all change, Maxel.”
“Aye, we all change.” Now Maximilian looked at Garth. “And what think you of Vorstus, my friend? You were close, once.”
“A long time ago, Maxel,” Garth said. “As once Ravenna and I were. As you said, we all change.” He paused, thinking. “I am almost not surprised to hear he has been so duplicitous and so manipulative. Frankly, Maxel, I’d set the pair of them to digging out the latrine ditches each night when we make camp.”
All three smiled, and the shared amusement gave Garth the encouragement to ask something that had been feeding his curiosity ever since Maximilian had told him Ishbel was, in fact, the Archpriestess of the Coil.
“Ishbel,” he said, “when first Maximilian received news of the Coil’s offer of a new bride, no one truly knew what to think about you.”
“I am sure you are being very diplomatic, Garth,” said Ishbel.
“We all advised Maxel against you,” said Garth. “We thought you’d be nothing but trouble. But Vorstus argued that Maxel would know if you were a priestess of the Coil, because you were sure to be marked. But…Maxel has mentioned no mark…and he said he did not know for certain that you were a member of the Coil—let alone its archpriestess—until he found you in Sakkuth.”
He left the question unasked, but dangling in the air between them.
“I can assure you,” said Ishbel, “that Maxel looked for it. Very diligently.”
She paused, enjoying the moment, keeping her eyes ahead.
“He just didn’t look in quite the right place,” she said eventually, a smile taking any sting out of her words. “And he’s lost his chance now.”
Further up the column, the soldier Rimmert rode his horse up to join Insharah’s.
“There is deep unhappiness, my lord,” Rimmert said to Insharah. “Every man among us wonders why we continue on this road to Elcho Falling, when we’d be doing more good further south.”
“Enough, Rimmert.”
Rimmert studied Insharah. The man’s voice had lacked conviction, and Rimmert noted that there were deep lines of worry and sleeplessness about his eyes.
“What are we doing here, Insharah?” Rimmert said, lapsing back into old familiarity. “There is word that Armat has consolidated his forces to the east, and even now prepares to march south to Isembaard.”
“Rimmert—”
“That word, Insharah, has spread like wildfire throughout the troops. Armat is acting, while…here?” Rimmert spat to one side. “We are merely riding toward some vague glory. I don’t know. I just don’t know, Insharah. Elcho Falling has nothing to do with us, while the fate of Isembaard and our families has everything to do with us. Everyone believes we would be better south than—”
“Enough, Rimmert!”
Rimmert gave Insharah a long, hard look. “Tonight fully one hundred thousand men are going to desert…if ‘desert’ is the right term to abandon a man and cause to which we owe no loyalty. I will be with them. It is your choice, Insharah, whether you allow us to go, whether you alert Axis…
“Or whether you join us.”