She was still dressed in her travel-stained clothes and
he bade her sit opposite him. She was a striking woman, he thought, with a leanness that ought to have made her appear masculine, yet somehow emphasized her femininity. ‘I shall have my tailor attend you,’ he said.
Karis laughed. ‘I am not looking at my best, my lord,’ she admitted.
‘I shall speak frankly. I am considering asking you to conduct the defence of Corduin. Yet I am troubled.’
‘I am more suited to moving campaigns,’ she said. ‘But I do have experience of sieges.’
‘That is not what troubles me, Karis. I do not doubt your talents; I doubt your temperament.’
‘You are a plain speaker, my lord. How does my temperament offend you?’
‘It does not offend me. I am not easily offended. I had an elder brother – did you know that?’ Karis shook her head. ‘He was a fine man, but he loved danger. When we were children he once climbed to the palace roof, and ran along the top of the parapet. My father was furious, and asked him why he had done it. Did he not realize that one slip, one gust of wind, and his life would have ended? You know what he said, don’t you?’
‘Yes, he told him that was why he did it.’
‘Exactly. The moment of madness, the exultation that comes with spitting in the eye of death.’
‘This is something you have experienced, my lord?’ she asked him, surprised.
‘No. Never. But that is what my brother told me. Two months before my father died my brother travelled with some friends into the high country where there was a mountain which no man had ever climbed. My brother climbed it; he was killed in a rock slide on the way down. There was no need to climb that mountain; it achieved nothing. And he died.’
‘And you think I am like your brother?’ ‘I know that you are, Karis. You live your strange life on the edge of an abyss. Perhaps you are a little in love with death. But my city is in peril. To defend it will require dedication, constancy and skill.’
Karis was silent for a moment, remembering first the time when she stood naked on the crumbling balcony in Morgallis, and then the issuing of the challenge to the Daroth leader. She looked in the Duke’s hooded eyes. ‘You can rely on me, my lord. I know that what you say of me is true. I do, perhaps, love death, and I am at my most content when standing upon the edge of the abyss.’ She laughed. ‘Therefore, where else would I choose to be than Corduin? The abyss is coming – black and terrifying. In the spring it will be just outside the walls.’
When Karis had fled the city, Giriak had experienced two emotions. The first had been disappointment, for in his own way he had loved the warrior woman. Unlike any lover he had known Karis fired his blood, and his feelings for her were rooted deep. The second emotion, however, had been joy, for Sirano had given him command of her lancers. Giriak had always known he was as good a leader as she. Most of her victories, he believed, had been achieved due to his part in them. This was what made the current situation so galling, for since she had gone he had led two raids on the south, both of which had gone disastrously wrong. They would, he knew with absolute certainty, have failed even if Karis had been the commander. He was sure of that, even if his men were not.
The one quality, it seemed to Giriak, that Karis had enjoyed above all others was luck. That was the only difference; he told himself this time and again, as if the
constant repetition would make it true. All his life he had been cursed by bad luck. At an early age he had discovered a talent for running and he had trained hard under the watchful eye of his father, the village blacksmith. But another boy had beaten him in the Shire Finals after Giriak had stepped into a rabbit hole and twisted his ankle. Dark and handsome he had even lost out in love. Gealla had been all that he had wanted; he had courted her, and won her heart. But one of his so-called friends had told her of his illicit liaison with another village girl, and she had spurned him and married another. Even as a soldier Giriak had been overlooked – except by Karis. She had promoted him to be her second in command and here he had excelled, despite her occasional meddling in his decisions.