Another modest sanctuary dome appeared along the horizon ahead, pale gold in the afternoon light. He remembered it. Once, headed for Orane, he’d become ill, had thought he might die. They’d brought him there. Sickness could happen to anyone at any time. And if you died of it, the god would judge your deeds, and your soul as it was then, and offer you light, or darkness. You lived in the knowledge—and the fear—of that judgment. He was hardly old, but he wasn’t a young man anymore. He had a grown son back in Berga, and a younger one with him now.

He ordered a halt and dismounted outside the sanctuary. He went inside with Guiart and his senior officers to pray. The clerics who greeted them were deferential, visibly afraid of him. Both things were proper, he thought.

It was when they were leaving that the incident occurred.

He had noticed the new cleric leading the rites up by the altar and the worn, faded sun disk. The man was still young-looking, but with a dramatic head of silver hair. Vivid blue eyes, the duke saw, when the cleric came up to him on the portico as he stood looking at a suddenly arriving rain shower before going out into it to ride on.

“Thank you, good cleric,” Barratin said graciously. “It is always proper to seek Jad’s blessing on the road.”

“We would never deny prayer and repentance to any traveller,” the cleric said. A deep, clear voice. This one didn’t seem, the duke thought, deferential or afraid.

“Of course,” he said, turning to go.

“But you would be wrong if you think you have the god’s blessing just now.”

Barratin stopped. He turned back. He felt as if he’d been slapped.

“What did you just say?”

“You heard what I just said, my lord duke. We may be somewhat isolated here, but we are not without access to tidings, or to seeing what goes past us.” The man drew a breath, then said, shockingly, “Between a confessed murder in winter and now a march with an army towards Orane and your anointed king, you delude yourself as to what awaits you from Jad.”

“How dare you!” rasped Burkard van Aribert. Two of the duke’s officers came nearer, hands on swords.

“I dare because I must speak the truth of the god or I fail in my office,” said the cleric. He wasn’t especially tall but he stood very straight. “A quick prayer on the road is nothing, a matter of moments, but the darkness that lies in wait is eternal. Go home, my lord duke. It is not too late! Pray there, and properly repent. Money spent in Rhodias is not enough.”

Really, thought Laurent de Barratin, how does he dare? He felt rage coming over him in dizzying waves. He worked to control it. Rage was often his undoing.