‘So,’ Lostara said, ‘not even the Letherii nobles would welcome a change in the present order.’

‘Them least of all.’

‘What of your Emperor?’

‘Rhulad? From all accounts, he is insane, and effectively isolated besides. The empire is ruled by the Chancellor, and lie’s Letherii. He was also Chancellor in the days of King Diskanar, and he was there to ensure that the transition went smoothly.’

A grunt from Blistig, and he turned to Tavore. ‘The marines, Adjunct,’ he said in a half-moan.

And Throatslitter understood and felt a dread chill seeping through him. We sent them in, expecting to find allies, expecting them to whip the countryside into a belligerent frenzy. But they won’t get that.

The whole damned empire is going to rise up all right. To tear out their throats.

Adjunct, you have done it again.

Chapter Fifteen

The fist slammed down at the far end of the table. Food-crusted cutlery danced, plates thumped then skidded. The reverberation- heavy as thunder-rattled the goblets and shook all that sat down the length of the long table’s crowded world.

Fist shivering, pain lancing through the numb shock, Tomad Sengar slowly sat back.

Candle flames steadied, seeming eager to please with their regained calm, the pellucid warmth of their yellow light an affront nonetheless to the Edur’s bitter anger.

Across from him, his wife lifted a silk napkin to her lips, daubed once, then set it down and regarded her husband. ‘Coward.’

Tomad flinched, his gaze shifting away to scan the plastered wall to his right. Lifting past the discordant object hanging there to some place less… painful. Damp stains painted mottled maps near the ceiling. Plaster had lifted, buckled, undermined by that incessant leakage. Cracks zigzagged down like the after-image of lightning.

‘You will not see him,’ Uruth said.

‘He will not see me,’ Tomad replied, and this was not in agreement. It was, in fact, a retort.

‘A disgusting, scrawny Letherii who sleeps with young boys has defeated you, husband. He stands in your path and your bowels grow weak. Do not refute my words-you will not even meet my eyes. You have surrendered our last son.’

Tomad’s lips twisted in a snarl. ‘To whom, Uruth? Tell me. Chancellor Triban Gnol, who wounds children and calls it love?’ He looked at her then, unwilling to admit, even to himself, the effort that gesture demanded of him. ‘Shall I break his neck for you, wife? Easier than snapping a dead branch. What do you think his bodyguards will do? Stand aside?’

‘Find allies. Our kin-’

‘Are fools. Grown soft with indolence, blind with un-certainty. They are more lost than is Rhulad.’

‘I had a visitor today,’ Uruth said, refilling her goblet with the carafe of wine that had nearly toppled from the table with Tomad’s sudden violence.

‘I am pleased for you.’

‘Perhaps you are. A K’risnan. He came to tell me that

.

Bruthen Trana has disappeared. He suspects that Karos Invictad-or the Chancellor-have exacted their revenge. They have murdered Bruthen Trana. A Tiste Edur’s blood is on their hands.’

‘Can your K’risnan prove this?’

‘He has begun on that path, but admits to little optimism. But none of that is, truth be told, what I would tell you.’

‘Ah, so you think me indifferent to the spilling of Edur blood by Letherii hands?’

‘Indifferent? No, husband. Helpless. Will you interrupt me yet again?’

Tomad said nothing, not in acquiescence, but because he had run out of things to say. To her. To anyone.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I would tell you this. I believe the K’risnan was lying.’

‘About what?’

‘I believe he knows what has happened to Bruthen Trana, and that he came to me to reach the women’s council, and to reach you, husband. First, to gauge my reaction to the news at the time of its telling, then to gauge our more measured reaction in the days to come. Second, by voicing his suspicion, false though it is, he sought to encourage our growing hatred for the Letherii. And our hunger for vengeance, thus continuing this feud behind curtains, which, presumably, will distract Karos and Gnol.’

‘And, so distracted, they perchance will miss comprehension of some greater threat-which has to do with wherever Bruthen Trana has gone.’

‘Very good, husband. Coward you may be, but you are not stupid.’ She paused to sip, then said, ‘That is something.’

‘How far will you push me, wife?’

‘As far as is necessary.’

‘We were not here. We were sailing half this damned world. We returned to find the conspiracy triumphant, dominant and well entrenched. We returned, to find that we have lost our last son.’

‘Then we must win him back.’

‘There is no-one left to win, Uruth. Rhulad is mad. Nisall’s betrayal has broken him.’

‘The bitch is better gone than still in our way. Rhulad repeats his errors. With her, so he had already done with that slave, Udinaas. He failed to learn.’

Tomad allowed himself a bitter smile. ‘Failed to learn. So have we all, Uruth. We saw for ourselves the poison that was Lether. We perceived well the threat, and so marched down to conquer, thus annihilating that threat for ever more. Or so we’d thought:’

‘It devoured us.’

He looked again to the wall on the right, where, hanging from an iron hook, there was a bundle of fetishes. Feathers, strips of sealskin, necklaces of strung shells, shark teeth. The bedraggled remnants of three children-all that remained to remind them of their lives.

Some did not belong, for the son who had owned certain of those items had been banished, his life swept away as if it had never been. Had Rhulad seen these, even the binding of filial blood would not spare the lives of Tomad and Uruth. Trull Sengar-the name itself was anathema, a crime, and the punishment of its utterance was death.

Neither cared.

‘A most insipid poison indeed,’ Uruth continued, eyeing her goblet. ‘We grow fat. The warriors get drunk and sleep in the beds of Letherii whores. Or lie unconscious in the durhang dens. Others simply… disappear.’

‘They return home,’ Tomad said, repressing a pang at the thought. Home. Before all this.

‘Are you certain?’

He met her eyes once more. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Karos Invictad and his Patriotists never cease their vigilant tyranny of the people. They make arrests every day. Who is to say they have not arrested Tiste Edur?’

‘He could not hide that, wife.’

‘Why not? Now that Bruthen Trana is gone, Karos Invictad does as he pleases. No-one stands at his shoulder now.’

‘He did as he pleased before.’

‘You cannot know that, husband. Can you? What constraints did Invictad perceive-real or imagined, it matters not-when he knew Bruthen Trana was watching him?’

‘I know what you want,’ Tomad said in a low growl. ‘But who is to blame for all of this?’

‘That no longer matters,’ she replied, watching him carefully-fearing what, he wondered. Another uncontrolled burst of violence? Or the far more insipid display revealing his despair?