The Trials of Empire, page 16
“You speak our language?” Vonvalt asked.
“I told you that she did,” Danai said, alarmed by Vonvalt’s sudden hostility.
“You told me that she spoke a little.”
“I can only speak some,” the Questioner said. Her voice was heavily accented, and she had difficulty around certain sounds, mostly tongue-to-tooth and lip-to-lip, which made sense given the shape of the Kasari mouth. But it was unmistakably Saxan. For the sake of this account, I shall curate her speech into something intelligible, rather than transliterate.
“You must accept my thanks on behalf of the Empire—”
But once again the Questioner demurred. “There is no need. In fact, it is I who should be thanking you. There are many of us within the Kasaraad who have been looking to secure our northern border for some time. Your speech yesterday, rude, insolent and unwelcome, actually had its intended effect – at least as far as you are concerned. And I should say, there were many who wanted to kill you simply for speaking out of turn.”
I exchanged an uneasy glance with von Osterlen.
“The Kasaraad is not known for its subtlety or its ability to reach consensus. The Houses look to their own interests before that of the Kyarai—”
“That is the way of politicians everywhere,” Vonvalt said.
The Questioner, again, looked annoyed with the interruption. “The matters upon which you spoke so passionately are of course well known to us. But so far we have not wanted to risk open war with your Empire. In light of what you have told us, as well as what our own priests and Hyernakryger were able to verify, we agree that urgent action is now required to stave off catastrophe on the mortal plane.”
“I am pleased I was able to assist.”
“Hm. The Templars are a menace. We have been reserved in the face of their aggression, but the truth is, in spite of what they represent, it has been difficult to hold off from destroying these people. And do not be fooled by the failures of our neighbours in Qaresh; the only reason your Templar hosts still exist on the northern plains is thanks to our forbearance.”
I took this with a pinch of salt. It was easy to criticise the Templars because we hated them, but the truth was they were an effective veteran fighting force with access to some of the largest and strongest fortifications the Empire had built. I did not believe that Kasari failures on the battlefield were entirely down to their hesitancy.
“Your being here has provided a convenient pretext for something that likely would have already happened,” the Questioner continued. “It is a shame that the Dwelkspreker had to pay for it with her life. But sometimes a drastic action requires a drastic beginning.”
Vonvalt looked impressed with this truism. “I am glad that you are with us. For the first time in a long time I am beginning to feel the first stirrings of optimism.”
“Well,” the Questioner said. “I would not go that far.” She nodded to the door. “Come; we have a long journey ahead of us.”
We exited the residence. Danai had her servants bring out our packs, and these were expertly stowed on those same gigantic horses that Sir Anzo’s wagon had been pulled by. These great, muscular beasts with their black horns looked more like oversized deer than traditional Saxan coursers, and were known in the Kyarai as Plains horses. It made sense that the Kasar would choose these to ride. Each wolfman was easily seven feet tall, and the weight of one and a half grown human men.
There would be six of us travelling north in total; Vonvalt, von Osterlen and I, as well as Danai, Ran-Jirika and Salana, which was the name of the Official Questioner. The Plains horse was much too tall for me to mount unassisted, and von Osterlen boosted me up with her hands. The creature did not seem to mind me; if anything, it was probably pleased to be carrying such a small burden. By happy coincidence, it also responded to the same cues as a regular horse.
It was a hot, dusty morning as we set off through the streets of Port Talaka. Some people glanced over to us, but for the most part we moved through unmolested. Many went out of their way to make some obeisance to Salana, and I wondered what her broader role within the Kyarai was.
It took us the better part of an hour to escape the western fortifications of Port Talaka. Broad, well-kept flagstones in pleasing geometric patterns gave way to a dusty road of compacted red earth. It was well trafficked for several miles out of the city, but it quickly became desolate. Salana explained to us that since the various Templar incursions south, trade from the north had all but dried up, and the Qareshians stuck to difficult but well-known mountain paths through the Southern Dividing Range.
Like many great cities of that era, one did not have to travel far beyond Port Talaka’s fortified boundaries to find oneself in open countryside. Several miles of ground was heavily irrigated for farming, but after that, we passed into open, uncultivated grassland. Here we were at the northernmost part of the Kyarai, itself the north-easternmost country of the Southern Plains. The plains themselves consisted of more than a thousand miles of open grasslands, though the Kyarai was hemmed in by the Southern Dividing Range, which kept Qaresh hot and dry and the Kyarai thick with rainforest – the ‘Reenwound’. I was desperate to see it, but would have no such luck on this journey. Indeed, as we approached the southernmost boundary of the Sovan Frontier, there was little except miles and miles of grass, rustling in the breeze, thigh-high and alive with the buzzing of insects and the keening of birds. Not for the first time was I grateful for the light, airy garments that Danai had provided us with.
The Plains horses were rugged and hardy, and had no problem in trotting along at a decent clip. It was just as well; we had a great deal of ground to cover. It was not long before Port Talaka was a distant memory, and save for a couple of intrepid merchants who had braved the Saekas of the Frontier – and who had been too long out of Sova to provide any useful news – we saw no one.
Vonvalt spent the entire journey learning as much Kasarsprek as he could. I could hear him, painstakingly repeating vowel and consonant sounds. Danai was a surprisingly patient teacher, and Salana, too, seemed happy to oblige, correcting where necessary. As the afternoon wore on, she was barely correcting at all. Vonvalt was absorbing it almost frighteningly quickly, though that should not have been a surprise. Vonvalt was a Justice. He was able to take in and understand a complex legal brief at a glance. And besides, Kasarsprek had a lot of Saxan in it.
By the end of the day, my thighs ached abominably; the back of the Plains horse was much wider than a regular horse, and though it was faster and stronger, my leg muscles did not thank it. Still, Danai and the Kasar seemed pleased with our progress as we made camp for the night. For my own part I ate and drank quickly and quietly, exhausted and longing for sleep, though I dreaded what fresh crop of visions awaited me.
But, for once, I dreamt of nothing.
The journey wore on. There is little enough to tell of it; we rode by day, camped by night, ate meagrely, drank water constantly, and listened to Vonvalt learn Kasarsprek.
These long periods of travel taxed my mental state greatly. Bressinger’s death had left a hole in my heart, and these hours and days of silent introspection gummed it up with profound melancholy. Vonvalt was many things to me, but he could never be what Bressinger had been – a friend, a brother, a confidant. I missed his companionship. I missed his love.
Sir Radomir would have buoyed me in these dark moments, but of course he was not there. There was a good chance I would never see him again, either. The sheriff’s black-and-white worldview was sometimes grating, there was no question of that; but it was also a welcome respite from Vonvalt’s intellectualism. I felt as though I could be entirely myself in the sheriff’s company, speaking and acting without fear of shame or judgement.
It was interesting to me that in this difficult time it was not Vonvalt’s company I craved. I was still no closer to crystallising in my mind the precise nature of our relationship, save that it was an unhealthy one and becoming more sickly by the day. I did love him, insofar as that meant I felt a deep bond of affection for him. But I was also in his thrall. I was bound to him not only by choice but by compulsion. I found many of his actions reprehensible and hypocritical, but in quiet moments I performed great feats mental gymnastics to excuse and forgive them. I wilfully blinded my conscience to stay with him because it was emotionally expedient. As a consequence of my difficult upbringing, which had sheared years off my maturity, I found that every fibre of my being screamed out for stability and the comfort of the known. In every period of peace and quiet I drew away from Vonvalt, seeking out the company of others; but with every fresh danger, I rushed back to him, my need for his comfort and guidance intense and urgent. This constant cycle exhausted and confused me and left me mercurial. On that long ride out of the Kyarai, I was a difficult companion.
“How did you come to be the Margrave of Südenburg?” I asked von Osterlen one day in an effort to take my mind off these intrusive thoughts. I realised that, for all the time we had spent together, I still did not know her that well. So much of our time had been given over to great, world-shaping events. Normal conversation about trivial matters had long seemed like a luxury to be dispensed with.
Von Osterlen looked at me askance. She was a little like Vonvalt; she could be surly at times, especially on long journeys, where they both had a tendency to sit in silence.
“That is a long and, if I am honest, not particularly interesting tale,” she said eventually.
I studied her as she turned away. She was what Vonvalt would call a “handsome” woman. She was of an age with him, or perhaps five years younger, dark haired and olive skinned, her features prematurely worn with the stresses and strains of helming a fortress on the Frontier. Like Resi August, she was a hard woman, and gave little of her time to levity, or at least with me. But there was an undeniable beauty to her, too. She was enigmatic and she was powerful, both physically – for especially out of her Templar armour and she was very visibly muscular – but also authoritatively. She was the kind of woman I aspired to be.
“We have plenty of time,” I said. “Why not give me the bones of it?”
The shadow of a smile played across her lips. “I joined the order of Saint Saxanhilde when I was about your age. What are you, twenty?”
I was about to correct her, when I realised that I was indeed twenty. Not only that, but I had been twenty for nearly six weeks.
“Shit,” I said aloud.
“What?”
“My birthday. I missed it. I completely forgot about it.”
“That’s quite an oversight,” von Osterlen agreed. There was an awkward pause. “Many happy returns,” she offered.
“Thank you,” I said absently. I tried to think of what I had been doing on the day in question. It did not particularly matter, but Vonvalt normally went out of his way to buy me a small gift – only he had forgotten as well. It was that, I realised, which stung me more than anything else.
“I suppose you have been occupied. With matters of state. I often forgo a celebration, though…” she smiled for a moment, eyes on the horizon “… my men often contrive to embarrass me with some ceremony.” She indulged the memory for a moment, even chuckling to herself quietly. Then, the moment passed. “I fear for Südenburg. For my people. For Luther.”
I wondered how Luther de Rambert, von Osterlen’s Grozodan second-in-command, was faring. He had helped Sir Radomir and I escape from Keraq, but I had not seen him since we had left Südenburg. Much like the margrave herself, he had been quiet, stoic and pious.
“You joined the order of Saint Saxanhilde,” I prompted, trying to divert her attention.
“Aye,” she replied. “I had a happy upbringing but I was one of many children. My elder sisters all went into the professions. One of my brothers is a Legionary. He commands the garrison at Jelicaburg. Another brother was killed in the Reichskrieg. We needed only the church to complete the full set.” It was an old joke; in Sovan circles, especially amongst the wealthy, it was fashionable to have a child take on a profession – an apothecary, physician, lawman – a child to join the Legions, and a child to join the church. It was known as the pjolni – the “full set”. She shrugged. “Saint Saxanhilde’s is a martial order – I think you know that.”
I nodded my agreement.
“It suited me. I am a good soldier, but a better commander. And I made all the right noises in Temple.”
“I thought you were a true believer,” I said before I could stop myself. I regretted it immediately, for I could tell it had not pleased her, and I had been enjoying the conversation. But I found her sentiment a difficult one to understand after our conversation in Danai’s residence. And besides, it fit much more neatly with what I would have expected. After all, von Osterlen was a pragmatic and intelligent woman. Such people rarely indulged in religious practice save what was required of them.
“That is impertinent,” she said eventually.
“I am sorry,” I said, and meant it. “It’s just—”
She waved me off irritably. “I know what you meant. Truthfully, I have always taken great comfort from it. Faith. I have…” she sighed, seemingly annoyed with herself for airing these thoughts, but apparently unable to stop “… found these past weeks very difficult, as well you know. Sir Konrad speaks so offhandedly, so blithely about the bleakness of the afterlife, as though an eternity of existence as little more than prey for malign entities is not a profound existential horror. On reflection, I see why the information, the knowledge, is not more widely shared.”
I shrugged. “So much of it is still unknown, though,” I said, trying to offer some comfort in a way I had been unable to in Port Talaka. “Who is to say that such heavenly realms as those of Nema and the Deti do not exist in some form? Perhaps they are much deeper in the aether, or exist on some other plane. What we have seen is bleak, yes, but that is just what we have seen.”
Von Osterlen smiled mirthlessly. “You sound like him, do you know that?” She nodded to Vonvalt as she said it.
“’Tis no wonder,” I said. “I have spent more time in his company than any other’s, except perhaps Dubine,” I added with a pang of melancholy.
“Did anything come of your… courtship?” She raised her eyebrows pointedly.
I shrugged again. “I know not the workings of his mind. In all honesty, I know not the workings of my own. He is not the man I knew a few years ago. He is not the man I knew a few months ago. Every day I spend with him brings new horror. I barely sleep for fear of waking up to see some malignant spirit loitering about my bed, or of being dashed apart by demons. Half the time I can barely bring myself to eat. Everything seems so… insurmountable. There is no end in sight. I’m not sure I have the mettle for more weeks and months of this – for that is surely how long it will take to resolve. And I cannot disentangle my thoughts of him from…” I gestured to the plains around us. “This. Our mission. Our purpose, our sole purpose. Sir Konrad is consumed by thoughts of Claver. It leaves little room for anything else. And, frankly, that is probably the way it should be. But I am not Sir Konrad. My mind moves from thing to thing like a frog across lily pads.”
Von Osterlen shook her head gently. “I am not so sure, Helena. We must make time to indulge our desires. Our humanity. We are not automata. Even in Südenburg, as severe a place as you can exist within the Empire – or rather, without it – we made time for levity, for music and humour, for carnality. A life without these things is no life at all.”
“I always thought the Templars were a chaste order,” I said.
“Oh, not the Order of Saxan Knights.” She gave me a wry look. “The great hall after a battle is like Kliner’s The Fall of Gevennah.”
Kliner was one of the most celebrated Sovan artists, but I did not know the reference.
The day wore on. Von Osterlen told me more of her journey from initiate to margrave. I probed her with the odd question, but I was content to simply let her speak – and she to talk. It was not an account she had been asked to give before.
I cannot recall precisely how long the journey took. I’m sure that was a symptom of the featureless landscape. We did pass the odd settlement, of course, but so much of the north of the Kyarai was wildflower grassland, hundreds and hundreds of miles of it in every direction. Certainly it was long enough for Vonvalt to pick up an impressive grasp of Kasarsprek. By the time we reached the Grasvlaktekraag encampment, he seemed to speak it almost as easily as Danai, and I could not help but wonder if he had employed some subtle magickal gift to enhance his understanding.
“It is not as difficult as it seems,” Vonvalt said to me. I do not think he was trying to sound insufferable, but he spoke as one with great knowledge on the subject, rather than the enthusiastic amateur he was. “The only hard part is using the throat correctly. The shape of the wolfman’s mouth means he relies more on his throat to enunciate. But Kasarsprek minimises these glottal sounds and creates simulacra of the bilabial and labiodental sounds in the middle of the mouth. Listen to the difference between Kasarsprek and Kasari; the latter is much more guttural—”
He carried on in this vein for some time, but my attention was fixed on what looked to be a distant fortification. It was mid-afternoon on the final day of our trek, and all of us – save apparently Vonvalt – were tired, surly, and parched, for our water reserves had been calculated with great specificity in order to spare the horses the extra weight.
As we drew closer, I could see that it was indeed a fortification. Steeply sloped ramparts of compacted red earth rose up and were capped with crenellated walls of pink stone. In the centre lay a pyramidal keep which was festooned with geometric gargoyles. The curtain wall ensconced dozens of other buildings, too, mostly square in profile, with thin slit windows and the same crenellations one would find on hundreds of similar Sovan fortifications. Some of them were gone to ruin; more still were overgrown and in need of repair. Yet for its rambling nature – and it was a large fortress covering a half-dozen acres – it was imposing in the afternoon haze.
“I told you that she did,” Danai said, alarmed by Vonvalt’s sudden hostility.
“You told me that she spoke a little.”
“I can only speak some,” the Questioner said. Her voice was heavily accented, and she had difficulty around certain sounds, mostly tongue-to-tooth and lip-to-lip, which made sense given the shape of the Kasari mouth. But it was unmistakably Saxan. For the sake of this account, I shall curate her speech into something intelligible, rather than transliterate.
“You must accept my thanks on behalf of the Empire—”
But once again the Questioner demurred. “There is no need. In fact, it is I who should be thanking you. There are many of us within the Kasaraad who have been looking to secure our northern border for some time. Your speech yesterday, rude, insolent and unwelcome, actually had its intended effect – at least as far as you are concerned. And I should say, there were many who wanted to kill you simply for speaking out of turn.”
I exchanged an uneasy glance with von Osterlen.
“The Kasaraad is not known for its subtlety or its ability to reach consensus. The Houses look to their own interests before that of the Kyarai—”
“That is the way of politicians everywhere,” Vonvalt said.
The Questioner, again, looked annoyed with the interruption. “The matters upon which you spoke so passionately are of course well known to us. But so far we have not wanted to risk open war with your Empire. In light of what you have told us, as well as what our own priests and Hyernakryger were able to verify, we agree that urgent action is now required to stave off catastrophe on the mortal plane.”
“I am pleased I was able to assist.”
“Hm. The Templars are a menace. We have been reserved in the face of their aggression, but the truth is, in spite of what they represent, it has been difficult to hold off from destroying these people. And do not be fooled by the failures of our neighbours in Qaresh; the only reason your Templar hosts still exist on the northern plains is thanks to our forbearance.”
I took this with a pinch of salt. It was easy to criticise the Templars because we hated them, but the truth was they were an effective veteran fighting force with access to some of the largest and strongest fortifications the Empire had built. I did not believe that Kasari failures on the battlefield were entirely down to their hesitancy.
“Your being here has provided a convenient pretext for something that likely would have already happened,” the Questioner continued. “It is a shame that the Dwelkspreker had to pay for it with her life. But sometimes a drastic action requires a drastic beginning.”
Vonvalt looked impressed with this truism. “I am glad that you are with us. For the first time in a long time I am beginning to feel the first stirrings of optimism.”
“Well,” the Questioner said. “I would not go that far.” She nodded to the door. “Come; we have a long journey ahead of us.”
We exited the residence. Danai had her servants bring out our packs, and these were expertly stowed on those same gigantic horses that Sir Anzo’s wagon had been pulled by. These great, muscular beasts with their black horns looked more like oversized deer than traditional Saxan coursers, and were known in the Kyarai as Plains horses. It made sense that the Kasar would choose these to ride. Each wolfman was easily seven feet tall, and the weight of one and a half grown human men.
There would be six of us travelling north in total; Vonvalt, von Osterlen and I, as well as Danai, Ran-Jirika and Salana, which was the name of the Official Questioner. The Plains horse was much too tall for me to mount unassisted, and von Osterlen boosted me up with her hands. The creature did not seem to mind me; if anything, it was probably pleased to be carrying such a small burden. By happy coincidence, it also responded to the same cues as a regular horse.
It was a hot, dusty morning as we set off through the streets of Port Talaka. Some people glanced over to us, but for the most part we moved through unmolested. Many went out of their way to make some obeisance to Salana, and I wondered what her broader role within the Kyarai was.
It took us the better part of an hour to escape the western fortifications of Port Talaka. Broad, well-kept flagstones in pleasing geometric patterns gave way to a dusty road of compacted red earth. It was well trafficked for several miles out of the city, but it quickly became desolate. Salana explained to us that since the various Templar incursions south, trade from the north had all but dried up, and the Qareshians stuck to difficult but well-known mountain paths through the Southern Dividing Range.
Like many great cities of that era, one did not have to travel far beyond Port Talaka’s fortified boundaries to find oneself in open countryside. Several miles of ground was heavily irrigated for farming, but after that, we passed into open, uncultivated grassland. Here we were at the northernmost part of the Kyarai, itself the north-easternmost country of the Southern Plains. The plains themselves consisted of more than a thousand miles of open grasslands, though the Kyarai was hemmed in by the Southern Dividing Range, which kept Qaresh hot and dry and the Kyarai thick with rainforest – the ‘Reenwound’. I was desperate to see it, but would have no such luck on this journey. Indeed, as we approached the southernmost boundary of the Sovan Frontier, there was little except miles and miles of grass, rustling in the breeze, thigh-high and alive with the buzzing of insects and the keening of birds. Not for the first time was I grateful for the light, airy garments that Danai had provided us with.
The Plains horses were rugged and hardy, and had no problem in trotting along at a decent clip. It was just as well; we had a great deal of ground to cover. It was not long before Port Talaka was a distant memory, and save for a couple of intrepid merchants who had braved the Saekas of the Frontier – and who had been too long out of Sova to provide any useful news – we saw no one.
Vonvalt spent the entire journey learning as much Kasarsprek as he could. I could hear him, painstakingly repeating vowel and consonant sounds. Danai was a surprisingly patient teacher, and Salana, too, seemed happy to oblige, correcting where necessary. As the afternoon wore on, she was barely correcting at all. Vonvalt was absorbing it almost frighteningly quickly, though that should not have been a surprise. Vonvalt was a Justice. He was able to take in and understand a complex legal brief at a glance. And besides, Kasarsprek had a lot of Saxan in it.
By the end of the day, my thighs ached abominably; the back of the Plains horse was much wider than a regular horse, and though it was faster and stronger, my leg muscles did not thank it. Still, Danai and the Kasar seemed pleased with our progress as we made camp for the night. For my own part I ate and drank quickly and quietly, exhausted and longing for sleep, though I dreaded what fresh crop of visions awaited me.
But, for once, I dreamt of nothing.
The journey wore on. There is little enough to tell of it; we rode by day, camped by night, ate meagrely, drank water constantly, and listened to Vonvalt learn Kasarsprek.
These long periods of travel taxed my mental state greatly. Bressinger’s death had left a hole in my heart, and these hours and days of silent introspection gummed it up with profound melancholy. Vonvalt was many things to me, but he could never be what Bressinger had been – a friend, a brother, a confidant. I missed his companionship. I missed his love.
Sir Radomir would have buoyed me in these dark moments, but of course he was not there. There was a good chance I would never see him again, either. The sheriff’s black-and-white worldview was sometimes grating, there was no question of that; but it was also a welcome respite from Vonvalt’s intellectualism. I felt as though I could be entirely myself in the sheriff’s company, speaking and acting without fear of shame or judgement.
It was interesting to me that in this difficult time it was not Vonvalt’s company I craved. I was still no closer to crystallising in my mind the precise nature of our relationship, save that it was an unhealthy one and becoming more sickly by the day. I did love him, insofar as that meant I felt a deep bond of affection for him. But I was also in his thrall. I was bound to him not only by choice but by compulsion. I found many of his actions reprehensible and hypocritical, but in quiet moments I performed great feats mental gymnastics to excuse and forgive them. I wilfully blinded my conscience to stay with him because it was emotionally expedient. As a consequence of my difficult upbringing, which had sheared years off my maturity, I found that every fibre of my being screamed out for stability and the comfort of the known. In every period of peace and quiet I drew away from Vonvalt, seeking out the company of others; but with every fresh danger, I rushed back to him, my need for his comfort and guidance intense and urgent. This constant cycle exhausted and confused me and left me mercurial. On that long ride out of the Kyarai, I was a difficult companion.
“How did you come to be the Margrave of Südenburg?” I asked von Osterlen one day in an effort to take my mind off these intrusive thoughts. I realised that, for all the time we had spent together, I still did not know her that well. So much of our time had been given over to great, world-shaping events. Normal conversation about trivial matters had long seemed like a luxury to be dispensed with.
Von Osterlen looked at me askance. She was a little like Vonvalt; she could be surly at times, especially on long journeys, where they both had a tendency to sit in silence.
“That is a long and, if I am honest, not particularly interesting tale,” she said eventually.
I studied her as she turned away. She was what Vonvalt would call a “handsome” woman. She was of an age with him, or perhaps five years younger, dark haired and olive skinned, her features prematurely worn with the stresses and strains of helming a fortress on the Frontier. Like Resi August, she was a hard woman, and gave little of her time to levity, or at least with me. But there was an undeniable beauty to her, too. She was enigmatic and she was powerful, both physically – for especially out of her Templar armour and she was very visibly muscular – but also authoritatively. She was the kind of woman I aspired to be.
“We have plenty of time,” I said. “Why not give me the bones of it?”
The shadow of a smile played across her lips. “I joined the order of Saint Saxanhilde when I was about your age. What are you, twenty?”
I was about to correct her, when I realised that I was indeed twenty. Not only that, but I had been twenty for nearly six weeks.
“Shit,” I said aloud.
“What?”
“My birthday. I missed it. I completely forgot about it.”
“That’s quite an oversight,” von Osterlen agreed. There was an awkward pause. “Many happy returns,” she offered.
“Thank you,” I said absently. I tried to think of what I had been doing on the day in question. It did not particularly matter, but Vonvalt normally went out of his way to buy me a small gift – only he had forgotten as well. It was that, I realised, which stung me more than anything else.
“I suppose you have been occupied. With matters of state. I often forgo a celebration, though…” she smiled for a moment, eyes on the horizon “… my men often contrive to embarrass me with some ceremony.” She indulged the memory for a moment, even chuckling to herself quietly. Then, the moment passed. “I fear for Südenburg. For my people. For Luther.”
I wondered how Luther de Rambert, von Osterlen’s Grozodan second-in-command, was faring. He had helped Sir Radomir and I escape from Keraq, but I had not seen him since we had left Südenburg. Much like the margrave herself, he had been quiet, stoic and pious.
“You joined the order of Saint Saxanhilde,” I prompted, trying to divert her attention.
“Aye,” she replied. “I had a happy upbringing but I was one of many children. My elder sisters all went into the professions. One of my brothers is a Legionary. He commands the garrison at Jelicaburg. Another brother was killed in the Reichskrieg. We needed only the church to complete the full set.” It was an old joke; in Sovan circles, especially amongst the wealthy, it was fashionable to have a child take on a profession – an apothecary, physician, lawman – a child to join the Legions, and a child to join the church. It was known as the pjolni – the “full set”. She shrugged. “Saint Saxanhilde’s is a martial order – I think you know that.”
I nodded my agreement.
“It suited me. I am a good soldier, but a better commander. And I made all the right noises in Temple.”
“I thought you were a true believer,” I said before I could stop myself. I regretted it immediately, for I could tell it had not pleased her, and I had been enjoying the conversation. But I found her sentiment a difficult one to understand after our conversation in Danai’s residence. And besides, it fit much more neatly with what I would have expected. After all, von Osterlen was a pragmatic and intelligent woman. Such people rarely indulged in religious practice save what was required of them.
“That is impertinent,” she said eventually.
“I am sorry,” I said, and meant it. “It’s just—”
She waved me off irritably. “I know what you meant. Truthfully, I have always taken great comfort from it. Faith. I have…” she sighed, seemingly annoyed with herself for airing these thoughts, but apparently unable to stop “… found these past weeks very difficult, as well you know. Sir Konrad speaks so offhandedly, so blithely about the bleakness of the afterlife, as though an eternity of existence as little more than prey for malign entities is not a profound existential horror. On reflection, I see why the information, the knowledge, is not more widely shared.”
I shrugged. “So much of it is still unknown, though,” I said, trying to offer some comfort in a way I had been unable to in Port Talaka. “Who is to say that such heavenly realms as those of Nema and the Deti do not exist in some form? Perhaps they are much deeper in the aether, or exist on some other plane. What we have seen is bleak, yes, but that is just what we have seen.”
Von Osterlen smiled mirthlessly. “You sound like him, do you know that?” She nodded to Vonvalt as she said it.
“’Tis no wonder,” I said. “I have spent more time in his company than any other’s, except perhaps Dubine,” I added with a pang of melancholy.
“Did anything come of your… courtship?” She raised her eyebrows pointedly.
I shrugged again. “I know not the workings of his mind. In all honesty, I know not the workings of my own. He is not the man I knew a few years ago. He is not the man I knew a few months ago. Every day I spend with him brings new horror. I barely sleep for fear of waking up to see some malignant spirit loitering about my bed, or of being dashed apart by demons. Half the time I can barely bring myself to eat. Everything seems so… insurmountable. There is no end in sight. I’m not sure I have the mettle for more weeks and months of this – for that is surely how long it will take to resolve. And I cannot disentangle my thoughts of him from…” I gestured to the plains around us. “This. Our mission. Our purpose, our sole purpose. Sir Konrad is consumed by thoughts of Claver. It leaves little room for anything else. And, frankly, that is probably the way it should be. But I am not Sir Konrad. My mind moves from thing to thing like a frog across lily pads.”
Von Osterlen shook her head gently. “I am not so sure, Helena. We must make time to indulge our desires. Our humanity. We are not automata. Even in Südenburg, as severe a place as you can exist within the Empire – or rather, without it – we made time for levity, for music and humour, for carnality. A life without these things is no life at all.”
“I always thought the Templars were a chaste order,” I said.
“Oh, not the Order of Saxan Knights.” She gave me a wry look. “The great hall after a battle is like Kliner’s The Fall of Gevennah.”
Kliner was one of the most celebrated Sovan artists, but I did not know the reference.
The day wore on. Von Osterlen told me more of her journey from initiate to margrave. I probed her with the odd question, but I was content to simply let her speak – and she to talk. It was not an account she had been asked to give before.
I cannot recall precisely how long the journey took. I’m sure that was a symptom of the featureless landscape. We did pass the odd settlement, of course, but so much of the north of the Kyarai was wildflower grassland, hundreds and hundreds of miles of it in every direction. Certainly it was long enough for Vonvalt to pick up an impressive grasp of Kasarsprek. By the time we reached the Grasvlaktekraag encampment, he seemed to speak it almost as easily as Danai, and I could not help but wonder if he had employed some subtle magickal gift to enhance his understanding.
“It is not as difficult as it seems,” Vonvalt said to me. I do not think he was trying to sound insufferable, but he spoke as one with great knowledge on the subject, rather than the enthusiastic amateur he was. “The only hard part is using the throat correctly. The shape of the wolfman’s mouth means he relies more on his throat to enunciate. But Kasarsprek minimises these glottal sounds and creates simulacra of the bilabial and labiodental sounds in the middle of the mouth. Listen to the difference between Kasarsprek and Kasari; the latter is much more guttural—”
He carried on in this vein for some time, but my attention was fixed on what looked to be a distant fortification. It was mid-afternoon on the final day of our trek, and all of us – save apparently Vonvalt – were tired, surly, and parched, for our water reserves had been calculated with great specificity in order to spare the horses the extra weight.
As we drew closer, I could see that it was indeed a fortification. Steeply sloped ramparts of compacted red earth rose up and were capped with crenellated walls of pink stone. In the centre lay a pyramidal keep which was festooned with geometric gargoyles. The curtain wall ensconced dozens of other buildings, too, mostly square in profile, with thin slit windows and the same crenellations one would find on hundreds of similar Sovan fortifications. Some of them were gone to ruin; more still were overgrown and in need of repair. Yet for its rambling nature – and it was a large fortress covering a half-dozen acres – it was imposing in the afternoon haze.
