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He seemed to flinch and then he nodded, turning away once more.

Sukul felt bad, but she wouldn’t take back her words. She understood his meaning, but she didn’t like it. Seeing people and animals as just sacks of skin made ruining those sacks that much easier. If no one looked at the loss, they were left with no sense of the worth. In such a world not even life itself had any value. She looked over at Rancept once more. He was standing in the centre of the road, opposite the cairns, but his gaze was on the track ahead, beyond the road’s bend. Ribs sat at his heel. There was something hopeless in the scene and she felt herself close to tears.Advertisement

‘Is there a smaller grave?’ she asked, refusing to look too carefully at those cairns, not wanting her eyes to witness yet one more unpleasant truth.

He shook his head. ‘The boy got away, at least to begin with. Our friends are just ahead, by the way. Trying to skirt the mudflat, and you need to be on foot to do that — no place for horses. I’m thinking the boy was being pursued and took his horse out on to it.’

‘And?’ She made her way towards him.

‘There’s a lake under that flat,’ he said. ‘A lake of mud and it’s deep. His horse wouldn’t have made it. Could be the boy went down with it.’

‘Have they seen us yet?’

‘No.’

‘Step away, then.’

He frowned at her and then moved behind the butte once more. ‘What are you thinking, milady?’

‘When that rider comes to Tulla Hold not even the castellan will be there. Does anyone know where we are?’

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‘Sergeant Broot’s commanding in my absence. He’ll stare and blink and eventually that messenger will decide he’s got rocks for brains.’

‘And then?’

‘And then the rider will leave, going back to wherever she needs to be. Done her duty and left the tale at the feet of Broot.’

‘I think we need to make sure, if we can, whether Orfantal is still alive.’

‘The boy was meant to be a hostage, milady?’

‘Yes, in the Citadel itself.’

‘And he was sent along with nothing more than a handful of caravan guards as escort?’

‘Yes.’ She hesitated, and then added, ‘There might have been reasons for that.’

Rancept looked away again, his mouth hanging open as it always did, and the man’s ugliness now struck her as something tender, almost gentle. In that temple, in the vision in my mind, I could have made him beautiful. She wished she had. She wished, with sudden ferocity, that she had made him anew.

‘Castellan, can’t they heal you? Your nose, I mean.’

He glanced at her. ‘Best way is to break it all over again.’

‘Why not try that?’

‘Ever had your nose broken, milady?’

‘No.’

He shrugged, looking away once more. ‘Tried that. Six times.’

She realized that his attention was fixed on the cairns, and that it had not been a casual regard. As she made to speak he strode over to the makeshift cemetery, edging down into the ditch. Ribs followed him, tail dipped and ears drooping. Sukul joined them. ‘What is it, Rancept? What have you found?’

‘Found? Nothing, milady.’ Yet he studied the cairns. ‘When they camped below the Hold and you decided to go down and visit them, you commanded me to have the cook prepare four days’ worth of decent meals, for seven people.’

She looked at the cairns. ‘If there’s only one body under each one

…’

‘Someone else got away,’ he said, nodding.

‘Then where did he go?’

‘Milady, this is something old Ribs here can answer. But we’re not equipped for more nights out here. So this is what I suggest.’

‘Go on.’

‘I send him on, milady.’

‘To do what?’

‘Whatever needs doing.’

‘You told me — he’s just a dog!’

Rancept shrugged. ‘That’s my suggestion, milady.’

Sukul threw up her hands. ‘Oh, very well, whatever you say. He’s your dog, after all.’

‘We can take the road back to the Hold,’ Rancept continued, ‘but it might be that we’ll meet that rider.’

‘No, I don’t want that. Find us another trail back.’

‘As you wish.’

‘Rancept,’ Sukul asked, as a sudden thought struck her, ‘there aren’t any more secret temples hereabouts, are there?’ pqdm.com