That no one outside these canvas walls knew what had transpired in this tent?

His own blood was leaking fast from a dozen wounds. The fever was coming on him, the healing fever. He wanted to go lie down. He wanted Hati, and to lie still under a friendly roof and let the makers work, if they could heal so many wounds, with such scant resources left.

Marak, Marak, Marak, his voices said: and they wanted the Ila, they wanted her life as they wanted the east.

Memnanan had made his own choice, and stood now with the rifle aimed at the floor, deaf to voices, not knowing now what to do.

“Go to your wife,” Marak said. “She needs you. You have an obligation.”

Memnanan hesitated, perhaps weighing his choices, and asking himself where right was, or what he intended. Memnanan to this hour had not left the Ila, had not left the authority he had served, and defended, and obeyed all his life. And the storm still raged beyond the walls.

“Tell him to go,” Marak said to the Ila. ”His wife is in labor. She needs him. There’s a guide rope still at the door.“ Came a crash in the heavens, and a battering blast beat against the tent. ”Ila, tell him that. The sky’s getting worse. Send him! You owe him that!“

The Ila lifted her hand, red glove stained dark with blood, signaled Memnanan’s dismissal. That was all. The hand fell.

A breath more Memnanan hesitated, then turned and, hesitating for a last look, went back to the outer door.

Marak, the voices said. Marak.

And Marak reached down and drew the Ila to her feet and into his embrace, close, closer, body against body, blood into blood. He knew what the voices wanted. He knew what he had done with Lelie, and why Lelie had lived.

The Ila, no fool, must know. They stood that way for a long time, they stood there while the fever came, and the blood beat in Marak’s ears.

“This is war,” the Ila said in their long standing there, so that only he could hear. “This is war, Trin Tain.” Her lips met his and opened, and her mouth was moist, water-rich as his was dry. Blood mixed. Incredibly, there was passion in the kiss.

Aui’it and servants moved around them, and Marak, his voices said, Marak, Marak. It was war. His hands and arms and back took fever-fire. Pain enveloped him, enveloped her, a shared environment, and the ache in his side and his skull fed her hurts.

If the makers in his blood bred and multiplied to heal him, he thought they must exist in hordes and clots by now, his whole body become a furnace of healing.

And they met the Ila’s makers, and hers met his.

Marak, his voices said, thrumming in his head, Marak.