After a moment he gestured imperiously. 'Bring him.'

I entered the room, Ethalia close behind, her hand resting on my arm. When I reached the table, I found Tommer lying on his back, looking up into the darkness. His breathing was ragged. He still wore his long leather coat, fashioned to look like one of ours. But his wasn't a proper greatcoat, of course; it didn't have the dozens of hidden pockets with tools and tricks to help us survive. It didn't have the thin bone plates that might have stopped the weapon that had pierced his stomach so deeply that even through the layers upon layers of bandages the crimson of his blood stood out against the darkness.

Ethalia stepped past me to examine the wound, but it turned out there was more than one and I could see in her eyes that there was nothing she could do. This wasn't a briefly stopped heart; there would be no calling young Tommer back from this.

She looked up at me. 'Falcio, this wasn't done with a blade.'

Jillard spoke then, his voice quiet, steady, but quite unable to hide the unquenchable rage I could see shivering through his body. 'Two of the Inquisitors got hold of the Realm's Protector during the chaos. They dragged her to the gibbet, and my son Tommer ran in front of her and tried to duel the God. But before Tommer could issue the challenge . . .' He paused then, and I heard him take two slow breaths before he spoke again. 'The God drove his fingers into my son's stomach.'

'No,' I said, and then I said it again, as if repetition could stop the steady clock that was marking off Tommer's death, one ragged tick at a time.

'First Cantor,' the boy whispered, the words broken by coughs that spurted blood from his mouth. His father wiped it away with a silk handkerchief.

I started to reach for his hand and then stopped and looked at Jillard. I didn't need to see his eyes to know he blamed me for this; I already knew that he despised me and even now in his grief he was probably constructing a lifetime of punishments. Despite all that, I needed his permission.

He gave me the briefest of nods, then went back to wiping Tommer's mouth.

What do you say to a twelve-year-old boy as he awaits death? Do you tell him he's brave? Do you make promises of an afterlife in the arms of the Gods whom you know are already dead? Do you kneel and blubber over life's injustice?

'Greatcoat, report,' I said.

The boy's eyes opened a little wider; he swallowed. 'Tommer, sir.'

'You seem a trifle under the weather, Tommer.'

'I had a spot of trouble, First Cantor.'

'"A spot of trouble"? Is that what you call it when you attack a God?'

He coughed, and blood spurted from his mouth. He had to swallow several times until he could catch his breath. 'The fool tried to lay hands on my sister, First Cantor.'

I smiled then, and held it there like a lantern for him, because I knew he could still see me even if no more sounds could make it through the blood filling his mouth and throat, and because I knew he had held on this long so that those would be the words we remembered.

A little while later the Duke left, carrying his son's body with him, still wrapped in the long leather coat. There was a silent promise between Jillard and me; there would be a reckoning between us. Had I not encouraged Tommer in his dream of becoming a Greatcoat, had I shunned him or mocked him, or done any of the dozen things you do when a boy doesn't understand the dangers of this stupid, stupid life we lead- 'Falcio,' Aline said, cutting through my misery, 'Tommer saved Valiana's life. He may have saved us all.'

'He didn't,' I said curtly. 'The God could have killed her if he'd wanted. This is all theatre: a performance. He wants her coming to him on her hands and knees so he can shatter the Law for all to see.'

I heard the sound of an arrow and saw Brasti drawing another as Allister looked on. 'Off your target, almost an inch,' he said. 'Pay up.'

'I told you,' Brasti complained, 'these are new arrows. I need one free shot to get used to the weight first.'

Of course, I thought, because this is what you do when you're Brasti Goodbow and the world is falling apart around you: you pretend everything's just fine.

Aline caught my attention. 'You're wrong, Falcio. The Blacksmith was going to hang us when Tommer came, when he tried to challenge the God . . . It was like it scared them, somehow. That's how I got the idea to demand trial by combat. Maybe there's some way that-'

'Enough,' I said, practically shouting. 'This isn't a tale told over wine and song. There's no virtue in pretending that foolish daring and useless valour mean anything to anyone-'

'What?' Brasti interrupted, 'Daring and Valour are falling out of fashion, you say? I'll not hear such blasphemy inside these sacred walls.'

I strode up to him, my hand closed into a fist. Brasti's glib tone had struck a nerve in me. I could still feel the sticky wetness of Tommer's blood between my fingers where I'd held his hand. Aramor was in ruins. A God had walked among its broken stones and still-falling towers and the Blacksmith had proved once and for all that the Greatcoats could no more bring justice back to Tristia than we could bring back the dead.

'Falcio . . .' Kest started, but I ignored him. Brasti stood in front of me, his smug grin still on his face. I was so sick of his jokes, his pranks. I was tired of his drunkard's advice, his admonitions to 'just be a man' about it all. I needed to hit someone, and there was no one else strong enough to punish for my failures.

'Do it,' he said. His expression hadn't changed. His smile was intact and his tone was light and easy, almost as if he were challenging me to a fight, but his eyes held a softness in them that made me see what this was: he wanted me to hit him. He wanted me to unleash my useless anger on him. I looked around at the others. They were as tired and heartbroken as I was.

He wants you to hit him so that you won't loose your rage on anyone else.

I unclenched my fist and turned away from him, from all of them. I stared at the bare boards of the building, at the dank green moss that had intruded between the cracks. How long did it take for such things to worm their way inside the places that humans built, to slowly weaken them until they would fall from the slightest breeze? It had taken King Paelis a lifetime to devise his great strategy to save this country. Had the Blacksmith needed even ten years to bring his scheme to fruition? Five? One?

I guess it's easy to bend a people to your will when their nature is to kneel.

'Falcio?' Aline's voice was distant, muted; it was only the touch of her hand on my arm that caught my attention, and it was only then that I realised someone had asked me a question.

'What is it?' I asked.

'She asked what your plan is, First Cantor,' Rhyleis replied from where she sat strumming her guitar. She gave my title weight, as if to remind me of the responsibility that came with it. I was really starting to dislike the Bardatti.

The word 'plan' sounded absurd to my ears just then, and I caught myself chuckling. The sound was at once freeing and terrifying: the first tentative step into madness. I'd been mad before, after the death of my wife. I'd become a crazed thing, wandering the roads from a tiny village in Pertine that no one had ever bothered to name all the way to the home of a King, killing every man responsible that I could find along the way. I longed for those days again.

I forced myself to look up, and saw my fellow Greatcoats, waiting for me to speak. Allister, Talia, Mateo, Kest, Brasti, Darriana even Quentis Maren. They had given up their lives to try and do the right thing and where had it got them? I looked at Aline, the heir to a throne that was now worthless; at Ethalia, a Saint whose brethren were pretty much all gone. But it was Valiana who held my gaze longest: my chosen daughter, trapped behind an iron mask from which we had no means to free her. 'Take your people away,' the Blacksmith had said. 'Find a country worthy of your courage. Leave this one to those who may yet be able to redeem it.'

It was the best advice I'd heard in a very long time.

'Find what supplies you can, if there's anything left here,' I said. 'In the morning we'll buy horses, or steal them or do whatever it takes and ride south.'

'We're doing no such thing, First Cantor,' Aline said firmly.

I ignored her. 'Start packing up now.'

The others stared back at me, confused. 'What's in the south?' Mateo asked.

'Ships,' I replied.

Nothing had changed since the moment the Blacksmith had spared our lives: we still didn't have the means to fight him, and chances are we never would. This wasn't a duel we could win, which meant there was only one strategy left the one I hated most.

The fugidatist isn't really a fencer; it's just the word we use for a man who's found himself in a duel he can't win. Lacking any other means of survival, he just runs around the duelling circle, desperately avoiding his opponent's blade, crying and begging for mercy, hoping against hope that his opponent will, out of sheer embarrassment, call a halt to the whole affair. It rarely works, but rarely is better than never. I would give Aline what little life there was to be had I'd give them all what life I could. That would have to be enough.

'We're leaving Tristia,' I said.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE.

Courage

'Are you out of your fucking mind, "First Cantor"?' Antrim shouted.

I didn't know him particularly well; the King had made him a Greatcoat while I was on the road and our paths had never really crossed until recently. It hadn't taken him very long to take a dislike to me, all things considered.

'Let it go, Antrim,' Talia said, her voice so calm that it made me wonder if she had any idea how much fury and disdain was in her eyes as she stared back at me.

He turned on her. 'No, I don't think I will. I gave up my home and my life to become a magistrate, and I gave up being a magistrate to try and fulfil the King's last asinine command. And after all that, after we come to this point' Antrim rounded on me 'I was ready to die for Paelis' dream because I thought it might make this rancid shithole of a country just a little fairer, a little better. And now you're telling me it was all for nothing?'

'For less than nothing,' I said. 'You wasted your life, Antrim.'

His jaw clenched and I could see his teeth behind the snarl of his lips. He wanted to hit me almost as much as I wanted him to do so; I was craving physical pain to match the pain inside me. Maybe this was why Brasti had goaded me.

'That's enough,' Ethalia said, and suddenly we were all struggling to stay on our feet.

'I don't think so, Saint of Mercy,' Talia said. She was resisting the Awe, her hand wrapped around her spear and raising its point. 'Maybe if you weren't so damned "peaceful" you might have helped us prevent this disaster.'

'Don't,' I warned. It looked like I was having more trouble standing than the others.

Aline shouted 'Stop! Lady Ethalia all of you! Cease this madness!'

Ethalia looked down at her hands and the pressure was gone. 'Forgive me. I simply couldn't stand the rage in this room any longer.'

'No, I'm sorry,' Antrim said, bowing his head. 'I meant you no harm, my Lady.'

'Oh for the sake of whatever Gods remain, Antrim,' Brasti said, 'don't you start hitting on Falcio's woman too.'

'She's not-' I closed my mouth when I realised Mateo, Allister and I had spoken at once.

'What in all the hells is wrong with you people?' Antrim asked, and despite everything, that caused the lot of us to laugh, if only for a moment. Ethalia walked over to the bench where Valiana sat silently in her iron mask. She took her hands, and once again tried to calm the madness inside her.

Once we'd settled down, Talia said, 'Fine: let's talk about it. Let's say we run: we board a ship bound for the Southern Islands or to Dieram, anywhere. We flee. What then?'

'We live,' the Tailor said. It was the first time she'd spoken since I'd arrived and she sounded different, and looked different too: sadder, older. Diminished. I wondered what it must be like to be so brilliant, to be unique, only to discover that you aren't unique at all, and that there's someone out there better at what you do than you are. She caught my look and returned a scowl. 'We live, and we give the Blacksmith and his God time to fail and hope that the people of Tristia aren't quite so willing as he believes to enslave themselves once again.'

'One would think you'd never lived in this country,' Darriana said, scowling. 'Of course they'll take to this new theocracy. It gives them what they've always wanted: a new master to serve.' She locked eyes with me. 'One who doesn't complicate their lives with notions of laws and justice and the responsibility that comes with those things. One who tells them when to rise, when to work and when to die.'

I felt someone take my hand. Aline said, 'Falcio, I don't want to run. If my father's reign stood for anything, it was the hope that we could be better than our pasts. But if you believe that's the only choice left to us, if you've lost faith then' she looked down 'then I won't ask you to keep fighting for me if it will only bring us more bloodshed.'

Her words carried no accusation nor repudiation, but I felt Tommer's death between us now. 'There's nothing else we can do,' I said to the others. 'Don't you understand? Our choice is to live or to die, that's all there is. There are less than a dozen of us they've got an army. They've got their crazy God's Needles. They've got a fucking God. What do you want of me?'

Ethalia spoke first. 'Falcio? I can feel . . . Valiana's trying to say something.'

I sat down next to Valiana while the others scrambled to find something she could write with. After a few minutes, she had a pen dipped in ink and was scrawling on what had once been the tavern master's book of accounts.

'I can't read it,' I said.

Aline took it from my hands; she didn't need to do more than glance at it. 'You know exactly what this says, Falcio.'

Valiana reached out and Aline placed the book back in her hands. She wrote more, filling the page with jagged lines: I gave my oath to defend this country. I am the Realm's Protector and I will not flee my duty for any man nor God.

And then, beneath it, the same line she'd written at the beginning: Take off the mask.

'You'll go mad the instant that mask comes off,' I yelled at her. 'You'll rip at your own flesh, and when we hold you back, you'll tear your muscles and break your bones trying to break free and when that fails, your mind itself will snap and you won't last five minutes before your heart bursts in your chest.'

She tore off the page she'd written and began writing anew. Then for those five minutes I will fight.

'You stupid, stupid girl!' I shouted. 'It won't do any good, don't you see that? What difference does it make whether we die on our feet or on our knees?'

It was Aline who replied, 'When the dying is all that's left, Falcio, it makes all the difference in the world.'

I gazed around the room, searching for one of the others to step forward and tell Valiana how foolish she was, how wasted this death would be, but no one spoke a word. One by one they nodded, as if their assent held any meaning, as if their admiration mattered, as if Valiana's noble act would even be remembered. Maybe they were right: maybe some last futile act of bravery was as worthy an ending as we could hope for, but I was tired of fighting, and even more tired of losing. Nothing I had done nothing any of us had done had made the country one jot better. I lacked the courage to do what they wanted and hadn't the strength to face down their stares. In the end, I simply turned and fled.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO.

The Boy and the Cat

Every turn I made as I walked through the city streets set me more and more at odds with myself. I kept expecting to be attacked, by God's Needles, Church Knights, the God himself hells, I wouldn't have been surprised to find a pair of Dashini assassins waiting for me around the next corner. But despite the fact that I wanted the mercy of a quick death, my body was rebelling: every time a man or woman in the crowded streets glanced at me, my hand went reflexively to my rapier. I kept watch on every shadow-filled alley I approached, my heart pumping fast, readying my muscles for combat. I might have given up on the world but my instincts had not.

Find a riverboat, I told myself, or a barge hells, even a decent-sized log. Get them the hells out of here and figure out the rest later.

Despite the grand events playing out in the world at large, the shops and market stalls remained open; families loitered around butcher shops and fruit stands, negotiating prices and going about the daily business of life as though nothing had changed. A traveller from a foreign land might have been forgiven for thinking that what he was seeing was simply the normal ways of this country; that he had come to a place where people lived and died and perhaps prayed a bit too much, but were otherwise a simple people.

He would certainly not have believed they were in the process of trading what little freedoms they had for the relief of servitude, or the ease with which they were slipping into their shackles. I wanted to scream and rage at my countrymen, but lacking the will, I just kept walking until finally I found myself staring at a bridge spanning a narrow point in the canal about thirty yards away; hawkers selling passage on the river boats sometimes plied their trade here.

A group of boys were playing on the bridge, shouting to each other, laughing and giggling as they tormented a large orange cat they'd trapped. The creature struggled against them, scratching and clawing, hissing and spitting even as they forced it inside a cloth sack and tied it closed. For a moment they dropped it on the stone surface of the bridge, chortling as the bag tumbled around on the ground as if possessed. One of the boys wasn't laughing, though. He was smaller than the others, and I realised he was trying to reach for the bag, but one of the larger boys was holding him back, a big hand on his forehead. That, too, was prompting merriment from the other boys.