‘Possibly. If so, then the lad has missed his chance, and now thinks nothing of all that. He’s decided what he must do, and the vengeance he has avowed is anything but childlike. Some fated aspect of his nature has set him upon the path. He does not question it.’ Ivis paused, considering, and then he shrugged. ‘Perhaps he is something of a simpleton.’

‘It is truly a cynical world, Ivis, when we see stupidity and innocence as the same thing.’

‘Civil war makes cynics of us all, milord.’

‘Does it now?’ Anomander shifted slightly from where he leaned on the merlon, eyeing Ivis for a moment. ‘This hunger for change,’ he said. ‘It sets for itself a future in which every desire is appeased, each one won by sword, or blood, or an enemy brought to its knees. And at that instant, Ivis, so brightly painted in triumph, does the world freeze? Does time itself cease, nothing crawling on; not a single moment following in its usual tumble? But what world offers this impossibility? Only the one begat in a mind, and then raised in chains, never to be set free. The fashioning of nostalgia, my friend, imprisons us.’

‘Milord, did we not fight for our homeland? You, me, Draconus and all the others? Did we not fight to throw back invaders? Did we not win our freedom?’

‘We did. All those things we did, Ivis. Yet, has time stood still? From that moment of victory? Do you still see us all standing triumphant and flushed, as if trapped in one of Kadaspala’s paintings? Victory belongs on canvas, not in the real world. No, here, we move on. Urusander and his soldiers stumble from the field, to find tavern corners and bleak mornings. The nobles? Back to their estates, to frown at children grown into strangers, and wives or husbands with love gone cold.’ He shook his head again, turning back to the vista beyond the estate walls. ‘Still the echo chases us, and so we dream of making the moment eternal.’

‘I have heard, milord, that you refused Kadaspala’s request. For a portrait. And now, alas, it is too late.’

‘Too late? Why is that?’

‘Why, milord, because he is now blind.’

‘I would trust his hand more now than when he had eyes to see, Ivis. Yes, I believe I would accept his request. He is at last free to paint what he will, with no argument from the world beyond.’

‘I doubt he will approach you, milord.’

‘Agreed, but for reasons of which you may not be aware.’

‘Milord?’

‘He blames me, Ivis. For the rape and murder of his sister. For the death of his father.’

‘He is mad with grief.’

‘We tarried,’ Anomander said. ‘In no hurry to reach the place of the wedding.’