Arathan stood studying the Lord of Hate. ‘I imagine something like your Folly must incur many risks, lord. How is it you have avoided such dread pitfalls?’

‘In itself, a suicide note involves no particular obsession,’ Gothos replied, collecting up the cup. ‘My haunting is both singular and modest, in that I mean to get it right.’

‘And when you do, lord? When you finally get it right?’

‘Proof against the accusation of obsession,’ the lord answered, ‘since what drives me is simple curiosity. Indeed, what will happen when I finally get it right? Be sure I will find a means of letting you know the day that occurs.’

‘I hesitate to say that I look forward to it, lord, lest you mistake my meaning.’

‘Ah,’ said Gothos after sipping, ‘did I not warn you that old leaves hold a most subtle flavour? You have over-sweetened your offering, Arathan, as the young are wont to do.’

Arathan turned at a sound from the doorway, to see Hood standing in the threshold. The cowled Jaghut studied Arathan for a moment, and then stepped inside. ‘I smell that foul tea you so adore, Gothos.’

‘Properly aged as is appropriate,’ Gothos responded. ‘Arathan, fill him a cup, in which he may drown his sorrows, sweetly.’

‘I despaired,’ Hood said, collecting up a chair.

‘This is your story, yes.’

‘Not that, you gas-bloated goat. Day and night I am assailed. The questions alone invite my hunger for death. Imagine, the fools clamour for organization! Pragmatic necessities! Supply equipage, cooks and meals!’

‘Is it not said that an army travels on its stomach?’

‘An army travels on its griping, Gothos, which surely sustains it beyond all fodder.’

‘I too have been besieged, Hood,’ said the Lord of Hate, ‘for which you are to blame. This day, it was your officers who made a mess of my afternoon, as Arathan is my witness. So, as I feared, you are the cause of sorrows not just your own—’

‘That cause for sorrow not my own,’ Hood growled.

‘No,’ Gothos said. ‘But your answer to tragedy surely is. As for me’ – he paused to hold up his cup, as if he could somehow see through the pewter to admire the hue of the tea – ‘I would have set out hunting Azathanai, the ones with blood on their hands. Tragedy sits still as a frozen pond, upon which no firm footing is possible. Vengeance, on the other hand, can silence any army, in that grim, teeth-grinding way we both know all too well.’

Hood grunted. ‘The offence taken by innocent Azathanai will serve what need there may be for vengeance.’

‘Hardly. They’re almost as useless as we are, Hood. Expect nothing concerted, not even a proclamation of… oh, what would it be? Censure? Decided disapproval? Disagreeable frown?’

‘I am scoured of vengeance,’ Hood said. ‘Made hollow as a bronze urn.’

‘And so I shall think of you from now on, Hood. As a bronze urn.’