He faced her. He was not as old as his local title suggested, but he was bowed; the muscles from a lifetime with hammer and tongs were still visible but the skin around them was slack, as if he had been ill for a long time. The watery grey eyes were like broken glass. He spat yellow mucus on to the ground and said, ‘Night before last she barely made it back to the door, beaten half t’death. Witch Hale comes over and works on her, and comes out and tells me. Broken jaw, broken cheekbone; won’t see good outa her left eye ever again.’

‘Someone killed the man who did that, Gurren.’

‘I know. Hale got the girl to talk.’

‘What did she say?’

Gurren’s face was impossibly flat, impossibly empty of all expression. ‘From what Hale could make out, Urusander’s lad plucked her, but tenderly. But Millick saw enough to guess and took the rest out on her. And now Millick’s dead, choked in North Lane last night, and Osserc’s gone.’

‘That’s right,’ Serap said, seeing no need to dissemble. ‘Some rumours are going around that you might have been the one doing the killing.’

Gurren nodded. ‘I set those out, lieutenant.’

‘To muddy the trail.’

He eyed her, and then said, ‘I been holding a long hate for your lord, and your Legion that saw my wife killed, taken from me and Renarr.’

She nodded. ‘Poets have written of Urusander’s grief over your wife’s death.’

‘Poets can go fuck themselves.’

‘Well …’

‘I’m dying,’ Gurren said. ‘Witch Hale says it’s too late. Had my doubts about Millick all along, but she was set on him, you see, and with me leaving and all …’

‘I’m sorry how it turned out—’

‘I’d be a lot sorrier,’ he snapped, ‘leavin’ her to a lifetime of beatings and maybe worse. So it’s like this. I owe Osserc and if I could, why, I’d kneel before him, take that murdering hand of his, and kiss it.’

Serap stared, struck silent.

Gurren turned back to the forge. ‘Tell your lord this, lieutenant. Between us, now, the water is clear.’

‘I will tell him,’ she whispered.

‘But I want my daughter taken care of.’

She nodded. ‘I will swear to that.’

He shot her a hard look. ‘Legion vow?’

‘Legion vow, Gurren.’

The man suddenly smiled, and years vanished from him, despite the sickness behind his eyes. ‘I’ll be seeing my wife soon. There’s nothing like waiting, when the waiting’s about to end. Go on with you, then. I got me some chains to melt down for the nailmonger, and this fire ain’t nearly hot enough yet.’

* * *

‘Commander, it is good to see you again.’

Vatha Urusander seemed to study her for a moment before gesturing her to sit. They were in the room Hunn Raal called the Vault. Shelves lined all the walls, reaching to the ceiling. Scrolls, bound books, manuscripts and clay tablets bowed every shelf. A single work table dominated the room. Two chairs were pushed up against it, while the lower, padded chairs they now occupied stood like sentinels to either side of the low doorway.