Valtaya sat down beside the bed, rubbing her eyes. She was tired, too tired for sleep.
‘Do you always make snap judgements of people you meet?’
‘No,’ said Rayvan, sitting up carefully and feeling the pull of the stitches. ‘But love is in the eyes and one woman knows when another woman is in love. When I asked you about Darkmask you showed your sadness. And then you said he had saved your life. It was not difficult to reach the obvious conclusion.’
‘Is it so wrong to want to repay someone?’
‘No, it isn’t wrong – especially now. Anyway, he is a fine man.’
‘I have hurt him,’ said Valtaya. ‘I didn’t mean to, I was tired. Most times I try to ignore his face,, but I told him to put on his mask.’
‘Lake caught a glimpse of him once without his mask. He told me Ananais’ face was hideously scarred.’
‘There is no face,’ said Valtaya. ‘The nose and upper lip have been ripped away and the cheeks are a mass of scar tissue. One scar will not heal and oozes pus. It is a horror! He looks like a dead man. I have tried … I can’t . . .’ Tears fell and the words died.
‘Don’t think badly of yourself, my girl,’ said Rayvan softly, leaning forward and patting her back. ‘You tried – most women would not even have done that.’
‘I am ashamed of myself. I told him once that a face was not a man. It was the man I tried to love, but the face keeps coming back to haunt me.’
‘You were not wrong. The answer lies in your words – the man you tried to love. You took on too much.’
‘But he’s so noble and so tragic. He was the Golden One … He had everything.’
‘I know. And he was vain.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘It’s not hard. Consider his story: the rich young patrician who became a Dragon general. But what happened then? He entered himself in the arena games, and there he killed people to thrill the crowds. Many of the men he fought were prisoners, forced to fight and die. They had no choice, he did. But he couldn’t stay away from the applause. There is nothing noble in that. Men! What do they know? They never grow up.’
‘You are being very hard on him – he is willing to die for you!’
‘Not for me. For himself. He is after revenge.’
‘That’s unfair!’
‘Life is unfair,’ said Rayvan. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, I like him. I like him a great deal. He is a fine man. But men don’t come in just two groups, one of gold and the other of lead. They are a mix of both.’
‘And what about women?’ asked Valtaya.
‘Pure gold, my girl,’ answered Rayvan with a chuckle.
Valtaya smiled.
‘That’s better!’ said Rayvan.
‘How do you do it? How do you stay so strong?’
‘I fake it.’
‘That can’t be true. You turned the tide today -you were magnificent.’
‘That was easy. They killed my husband and my sons and they have nothing left to make me suffer. My father used to say that you can’t stop a man who knows he is right. At first I thought it was a nonsense. An arrow through the gizzard stops anyone. But now I know what he meant. Ceska is unnatural, like a snowstorm in July. He cannot succeed just so long as enough people stand up to oppose him. All over the empire word of the Skoda rebellion will be spreading and other groups will rise up. Regiments will mutiny, honest men will take up their swords. He cannot win.’
‘He can win here.’
‘It will be shortlived.’
‘Ananais believes that Tenaka Khan will return with a Nadir army.’
‘I know,’ said Rayvan. ‘I don’t feel too comfortable about that.’
In the next room Decado lay awake, his wounded shoulder throbbing. He smiled as he heard Rayvan’s words. You can’t fool a woman like her, he thought.
He stared at the wooden ceiling, ignoring the pain from his wound. He was at peace. Katan had come to him, telling him of the boy Ceorl, and Decado had been close to tears. All things were falling into place. Death was no longer a living fear.