Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

She thought of the highborn as the counterweight to Urusander’s Legion. But we present a sordid example, all things considered. Squabbling among ourselves, scrabbling for the highest elevation above our neighbours, and spitting venom upon the one who stands at Mother Dark’s side, as if questions of justice and propriety did not curdle on our own tongues! No, this was a wretched mess and in many respects the highborn had only themselves to blame. If a soldier risked her or his life, then it should be in defence of worthy things: family, promise, comfort and freedom from strife. But if a trench were cut across such virtues, where so many were left to scramble for the paltry leavings of those who most profited by that soldier’s sacrifice, then it was no wonder that scarred hands should itch.

They rode through the highborn district, with its clean cobbles and ornate gates, its blackwood carriages and healthy horses, its scurrying servants burdened beneath wares they did not own, and of which they would not partake. And the wealthy strolled — fewer than usual — through the dusk, warded by bodyguards, and, as always, contentedly unmindful of the world beyond their ken. She had travelled through the lower quarters of the city; she had seen the destitution and disease breeding in the airs of neglect. But such boldness was rare among her kin.

It would be easy to blame the dwellers for the filth in which they lived, and to see that wreckage as a symptom of moral weakness and spiritual failure; as, indeed, proof of the inequity of blood and the making of privilege a birthright. In the manner of horses, breeding would tell, and if nags struggled before creaking wagons and bore whip marks upon their flanks, and warhorses knew only fields turned muddy with blood and gore, and the upper terraces of the city offered dry even cobbles under well-filed, iron-shod hoofs, then surely this marked a natural order of things?

She had begun to doubt. Too comforting by far these assumptions. Too self-serving the pronouncements. Too inhuman the judgements. The trenches were deepening, and the eyes that looked up and across that gulf were hardening. The privileged had a right to fear these days, just as the dispossessed had a right to their resentment.

But Urusander’s Legion stood nowhere between that divide. They stood apart, wanting only for themselves, and they now gathered into ranks with weapons on hand, to take what the poor did not have and the rich had not earned.

She would be the first to scoff at the notion of hard work among her own kind. Tasks of organization were devoid of value without those being organized; without workers herded together with eyes downcast and the next day no different from this day and this life no different from the next one. She knew that she had been born to her wealth and land, and she knew how that inheritance had skewed her sense of the world, and of people — especially those in their hovels, who huddled in a fug of fear and crime and dissolution. She knew, and was helpless before it.

They approached the bridge and saw before them a large party of highborn, and Hish caught sight of Anomander — the silver hair, the mother’s legacy of his skin.

Gripp Galas rode up beside her on the concourse and said, ‘Milady, I am as unsuited to this company as the tale I bring to my master.’

‘Nevertheless, sir.’

Still he hesitated.

Hish Tulla scowled. ‘Gripp Galas, how long have you served your lord?’

‘Since he was born, milady.’

‘And how do you weigh the words you bring?’

‘An unwelcome burden on this day, milady. They journey to celebration.’

‘Think you your lord not aware of the violence in the countryside? He rides into smoke and ash this evening.’

‘Milady, the Deniers are a feint. The Legion but clears the field in preparation. They intend to march Urusander into the Chamber of Night. They intend, milady, a second throne.’

She studied him, chilled by the raw language of his assertion.

After a moment, Gripp continued, ‘I don’t know my master’s awareness of this situation. Nor do I know if my report will twist pleasure from his brother’s day. We all know a paucity of joyous memories and I wouldn’t assail this one.’

‘Must it always be paucity, Gripp Galas?’ Her question was asked softly and yet it seemed to strike him like a slap to the face.

He looked away, eyes tightening, and Hish Tulla sensed the gulf that stretched between her and him, a gulf he had acknowledged in acquiescing to the child Orfantal’s insistence that he deliver the boy to her first. This was a man who had stood in the highborn shadow: a servant, a bodyguard, his life subservient and dependent upon the very privilege he was avowed to defend. By this measure, one of mutual necessity, all of civilization was defined. The bargain was brutal and implicitly unfair and it sickened her.

Gripp said, ‘Milady, there’s enough to worry about without thinking too much. Too much thinking ain’t never but bred problems. A bird builds a nest, lays her eggs and feeds and defends her chicks, and there’s no thinking to any of it.’

‘Are we birds, Gripp?’

‘No. The nest is never big or pretty enough, and the chicks disappoint at every turn. The trees don’t give enough cover and the days are too short or too long. The food’s short on supply or too stale and your mate looks uglier with every dawn.’

She stared at him in shock, and then burst out laughing.

Her reaction startled him and a moment later he shook his head. ‘I do not expect my master to do my thinking for me, milady. We must each of us do that for ourselves, and that’s the only bargain worth respecting.’

‘Yet you will take his orders and do his bidding.’

He shrugged. ‘Most people don’t like to think too hard. It’s easier that way. But I’m content enough with the bargain I’ve made.’

‘Then he would know your thoughts, Gripp Galas.’

‘I know, milady. I simply rue what he will lose in the telling.’

‘Would he rather you said nothing? That you wait until after the marriage?’

‘He would,’ Gripp acknowledged, ‘but will face what he must and voice no complaint, nor blame.’

‘You are indeed content with your bargain.’

‘I am.’

‘You remind me of my castellan.’

‘Rancept, milady? A wise man.’

‘Wise?’

‘Never thinks too hard, does Rancept.’

She sighed, eyeing the retinue once more. ‘I wish to be back in my estate, arguing with my castellan over his cruelty to his favoured dog. I wish I could just hide away and discuss nothing more significant than a dog’s wretched tapeworms.’

‘We would mourn your absence, milady, and envy the castellan your regard.’

‘Will you seduce me now, Gripp Galas?’

His brows lifted and his face coloured. ‘Milady, forgive me! I am always honourable in my compliments.’

‘I fear I mistrust men who make such claims.’

‘And so wound yourself.’

She fell abruptly silent, studying the man’s eyes, seeing for the first time the softness in them, the genuine affection and the pain he clearly felt for her. These notions only deepened her sorrow. ‘It is my fate to lose the men for whom I care, Gripp Galas.’

His eyes widened slightly and then he looked down, fidgeting with the reins.

‘In what comes,’ she said then, ‘take care of yourself.’

There was a shout from the party, and at once riders and carriages were crossing the bridge.

Gripp squinted at the group and then drew a deep breath. ‘It is time, milady. I thank you for the clean clothes. I will of course recompense you.’

She thought back to the torn, bloodstained garments he had been wearing on the night of his appearance at her door, and felt tears in her eyes. ‘I did not sell them to you, Gripp. Nor loan them.’