They were a neglected, contrary lot. Weak and brutal, small but hardened, broken but sharp-edged. And like any broken thing, they existed in the realm of the discarded. When they looked up, they saw women eager to lift their skirts and men exposing ornate painted codpieces. They saw other men and women walking the camps, swords belted at their hips, coarse in humour and coldly practical in their needs.

Lessons on a pragmatic life. Whatever we do as adults, we make in our children more of what we are. Is there no end to this? Scholars speak of progress, but I fear now that they are mistaken. This is not progress that we see, it is elaboration. Nothing of the old ways ever goes away, it just hides beneath modernity’s confusion.

No, her mother would have refused the charade. She would, indeed, have forced Urusander to act. In the name of honour. In the name of the soldier.

Renarr found herself the sole occupant of Urusander’s intended quarters, with not even a servant present. She wandered through the rooms, stirring the ashes of her regret. A single ember remains, and surely it shall burn me, and my name, for ever more. But some things we do not choose. Some things are chosen for us.

She heard the outer door open and then shut. Returning to the main room she saw Vatha Urusander. He seemed startled to see her, but only momentarily. He smiled. ‘I am glad to find you here, Renarr.’

‘Is she done with your company already?’

‘It has been a long time since we last slept. There are storms in our heads, and storms between us. Of the latter, I see a calm ahead. Of the former…’ He shrugged, and walked towards the window overlooking the broad sward behind the Citadel.

‘Will you deal with Hunn Raal?’ she asked, drawing closer to him.

His back was broad, but it now belonged to an ageing man. There was sadness in this detail.

‘Deal with him? I had ambitions there, didn’t I? He names himself my Mortal Sword. This should make plain who serves whom.’

‘And does it?’ She hesitated a few steps behind him, watching as he leaned forward close to the windowpane and looked down.

‘A keep’s refuse,’ he muttered. ‘How it backs the wall, below the chutes. I wonder, do we build houses simply to keep the garbage out? It should be buried.’

‘It buries itself,’ Renarr replied. ‘Eventually.’

‘Hunn Raal deems himself immune. Perhaps he is right in that. Leave him to Syntara. He’s her problem, not mine. Mother Dark has the right of it. We step back, saying little. The condition of our people is for them to decide. I considered setting forth my laws, my foundations upon which a just society could rise. But how soon before my words are twisted? My premises twisted and suborned? How soon before we, in our mortal natures, corrupt such laws, each time in answer to a wholly self-serving need?’