The battalion had returned to Colvé for the remaining months of the year. Orla regarded the city as a giant cess-pit, and she was not thrilled to be back. In the wastes of the South she had chance to be alone: to think, to fight. Back here, nothing was real. The city's residents had no idea what crimes were being committed in their name in such distant territories. They had one aim, it seemed, which was to indulge their appetite for pleasure: to dance, drink, eat and share each other's beds. Like animals, she thought, with scorn.
Everything was different back there in Yegdan. At first, heartbroken at the sight of starving children, failing crops and dying animals, she had given away her rations. But after some time she learned that it was pointless to do so. She was left hungry, and such acts of kindness did nothing to alleviate the suffering she saw around her. And so her heart hardened like the stony, infertile earth, and she kept her food, eating it out of sight for fear that she might turn around to find reproachful eyes watching her.
The battalions came and went, each time with the same brief: to destroy the warlords who, controlling parts of this vast, dry territory, threatened the stability of the empire. Yet what, she asked herself, could the Emperor possibly want with such a place? Taking its toll upon the imperial army, the land soaked up soldiers' blood, yielding nothing in return. To the North, the fertile plains and highlands provided the capital with its crops. The great stretch of ocean which determined the empire's natural frontiers in the East brought fish, while the mountainous West was a treasure chest of minerals, its woods hacked down for carpenters, its stones mined for builders. Yet this arid land, almost a desert, dried out by famine and war: what could it possibly contribute to the imperial coffers? Better to seal off the borders and leave these people to their fate.
Like his father before him, the Emperor now dreamed of expansion, and there was nowhere left to go. What did it matter that the land was of no use, its people shattered by violence and horror? It was simply territory, and there was nothing more that the inhabitants of Colvé cared for than to hear that their empire had increased by an inch. That its power had somehow been exerted over a strange land and people of whom they were ignorant. That was all that really counted.
So while the hardships of Yegdan ‒ the hungry faces and dry, weathered landscape ‒ had taken its toll, she found Colvé, with its rich appetites and lack of heart even more difficult to accept. It didn't concern her whether they were courtiers, senators, businessmen, or she reflected bitterly, duellists. They were all the same. They all shared responsibility for crimes committed in their name, and they were all too indolent and selfish to ever want to hear of those crimes.
Orla wandered into the training yard. Here, soldiers – men and women – smashed at each other with broadswords, shot arrows into targets, flung spears high in the air. She picked a sword from a rack, swinging it around a few times, testing its weight. Maybe she could find someone to train with. At least fighting prevented her from dwelling too much upon what she had seen and heard: upon the sights and sounds of villages burned to the ground, the vile taste of the dry desert. Yet fighting here in the city barracks was merely training. Back there it meant killing. No relief could be found in the drawing of another's blood: the final gasp they gave as they sank to the ground and their eyes slowly closed. Such a result meant merely the conclusion of the task to which she had been assigned.
A hand tapped her on the shoulder and she briefly left the dark place her mind had taken her to. She turned round to notice a young lad, one of the barracks' servants.
"Someone to see you."
Orla followed him into the interior of the building along a labyrinthine series of corridors, dimly-lit by burning brands. He led her to a small ante-chamber used by officers for private meetings. A tall woman of middle years stood behind a table, looking as if she were about to give orders in a military campaign. Arms crossed, green eyes piercing and arrogant, she peered through the gloom at Orla, her hair swept tightly back from her face: Cara Thæc.
"I make it a point of honour not to talk to courtiers." Orla turned to leave.
"That's rather hypocritical of you, given that you choose to spend so much of your time in the company of a certain duellist."
"That duellist was no courtier. I have nothing to say to you."
"It's strange," Cara continued, undeterred, "that you refer to her in the past tense."
"That is because, as I'm sure your spies have informed you, our relationship is over."
She felt herself sucked into the conversation against her own will. Cara stood for everything she most detested about the city: its intrigues, gossip and self-obsession. As far as Orla was concerned, courtiers were unable to see beyond the end of their powdered, urbane noses. Yet she rarely came face to face with the object of her contempt, and now she found it difficult to turn away.
"She disappointed you, I believe, as she has disappointed others." Cara barely opened her mouth when she spoke, the words running out in a low, cool drawl.
"We went our different ways. It happens.
"You seem reconciled to your fate. And yet my informants led me to believe that you were so furious at the time you parted with her that the two of you fought. That, in full view of the misfits and human carrion who frequent The Emperor you both rolled around in the sawdust, punching and kicking each other. I suppose, on the basis of that episode, it could be said with a degree of confidence that Halanya is no courtier."
The memory was too painful for Orla. She turned to leave without uttering another word.
"It is such a shame, is it not, that while you were languishing in the wastes of the South she remained in Colvé, enjoying her fêted position with all the privileges it brings – money, fame, a certain young woman – the daughter of a rich merchant, I believe."
Orla remained facing the door, half determined to grab Cara by the throat and throttle the life out of her. "Madam," she hissed, her teeth gritted in rage, "you have succeeded in confirming why I hate the court and everything connected with it. Good day."
Cara leapt around the table, positioning herself between Orla and the door with surprising speed.
"Don't make me force my way out, Cara. I'll hurt you if I do."
"You have every reason to want Halanya dead and you do nothing about it. Are you a coward, woman? Are you really content to eke out your days on the empire's southern frontiers, while she pays you no more than a second thought?"
"I hate her, is that enough for you? She brought that bitch to The Emperor and paraded her in front of me. That's the kind of low behaviour I expected from courtiers, never from her. I've finished with her, and I hope I never see her again."
"You wouldn't have to, if you killed her."
"What?" Orla shuddered, incandescent with rage. "Me kill her? You want me to do your dirty work? If you wanted her out of your way, you had limitless possibilities to do it and you never took them. Why should I help you now?"
"I'm asking you to fight her, not to assassinate her. Far more honourable, wouldn't you say? And if you were to win, well...with Hal disposed of, you would have your revenge, wouldn't you? Money, too. You would be richly recompensed. And I could even make sure that you'd never have to return to that hell hole in the South."
Cara's words prompted memories of a certain evening in the city square. Orla recalled the heat, the billowing fountain, the rich sensation of sitting beside Hal, of their bodies brushing. And then Meracad had arrived. The merchant's daughter carried a fragile beauty, money fair chinked behind her when she walked. Why her? Why anyone? If she couldn't have Hal, why should anyone else? A duel, Cara had just said. A duel... "How can you be so sure I'd win? She is, after all, renowned for her skill with a sword. I'm just a soldier."
"My dear, you've been away from Colvé for too long. You know nothing of the past few months. Meracad's father found out about their little tryst."
"You mean you told him?"
"Possibly. It shouldn't concern you how he was made aware of the fact. His daughter was sent to Dal Reniac to marry Lord Bruno Nérac."
"A death sentence," Orla remarked flatly.
"Meanwhile, Halanya was subjected to a severe beating. Which she survived."
"Unfortunately for you."
"For us. But what it does mean is that, in her now weakened state, I really don't see how she could possibly beat you."
"The odds would be in my favour, I suppose. But as I'm sure you are aware, illegal duelling carries a heavy punishment."
"You would be under my protection"
Orla snorted in contempt. "As if that counted for something."
"You'd be out of the city and enjoying a far more comfortable posting as a naval officer in the East immediately. As much as you might hate courtiers, you can't deny us our powers of influence. Think about it, girl. As it is, you face certain death in the South. Such opportunities come but once in a lifetime: money, a career, a new woman at your side perhaps, and the satisfaction of Halanya lying dead at your feet."
She would be a fool to trust Cara, she realised that. But there was one thing she knew for certain: the courtier's hatred of Hal rivalled her own. And the thought of wiping that arrogance off the duellist's face, of calling her to account for her selfishness...another memory arose, unbidden: that night at The Emperor when Hal had shown up with Meracad for the first time. Orla's very heart had exploded in rage.
She pulled her thoughts together, backed away from Cara and sat down at the officer's table, recouping her self-control. "Listen, Cara, if I were to agree to such a thing, it would change nothing. I hate you all. This is between Hal and me."
"As you wish. The Grove in a week's time. Obviously I don't need to remind you to keep your mouth shut about this. I should think less of you if I believed you had informed a soul."
"It's not possible for me to think less of you than I already do. I will be there. That's all you need to know."
"Good girl." With the faintest flash of a smile Cara disappeared, leaving Orla alone in the ante-chamber. A duel to the death – it had a certain romantic edge to it. But Orla was not romantic. She was a realist. In a week's time, either Hal or herself would be dead. That, she reasoned, was justice.