‘Black grapes from the vineyards of Har Ganeth,’ Cassandra said. ‘And on campaign no less. I never expected to encounter such luxury in the field.’ Her voice was low and husky, out of keeping with her slender form. As ever he found it strangely thrilling. Like her, he was sleeping with the enemy. That too was arousing in its way.
‘My slaves packed them in a metal container full of ice from Mount Ebonfang. They stored it in the ice-caves in the hull of the Black Ark to keep them cool. It has only been a few days since we left it.’
‘And yet here we are,’ she said. ‘More than halfway across Ulthuan in a place I never thought we would see.’
Was she testing him, Dorian wondered, trying to draw out some sort of half-treasonous response so she could report it back to her superiors? She ought to know him better than that by now.
‘I never doubted our king,’ Dorian said.
‘Never in public anyway,’ she said with a smile. ‘And never out loud. Nor will you ever. I said I did and I meant it.’
‘Such words could be construed on as defeatism,’ he said. ‘Treason in time of war.’
‘Will you report me?’ Another test, he thought. Was she exchanging a confidence so that he would do the same? It was a time-honoured technique and he was too old to fall for it.
‘I would if I thought you meant it.’
She smiled at his response. She looked a little sad tonight, he thought, which troubled him more than he cared to admit.
‘Tell me, Dorian, do you ever tire of the ambiguity of our lives?’
He studied her face. He knew it very well. He had known it for a century. They had been on and off lovers for much of that time. There was an expression there he had never seen before. ‘I am not even sure what you mean, Cassandra.’
‘We fence. We lay traps for each other. We do not trust each other. We fear we will report each other to our masters. We watch every word we say, even here in a makeshift bed in an armed camp in an enemy land, and even though we may die tomorrow night.’
Her words hung in the air. He sensed they held more depth of meaning than usual, that their relationship was at some kind of junction, that something was in the air tonight that had never been there before. Or maybe that was just what she wanted him to think.
‘Of course we do,’ he said, choosing to make a joke of the thing. ‘We are druchii. What else would we do?’
Her answering smile was brilliant and shallow. Her face had become a mask in the half-light, one he could not read at all. It was odd, like looking in the mirror and seeing the features of a stranger. A single bright jewel glittered on her cheek. Surely, it could not be a tear.
‘I don’t know. We live in the shadow of ancient terrors, you and I. We have spent our lives there. We trust no one because anyone could be the spy who undoes us – our sisters, our brothers, our parents, our lovers, our friends.’
‘A druchii has no friends,’ said Dorian. It was the punch line of an old joke which, like most jokes, had a core of uncomfortable truth to it.
‘There are spies everywhere. The worst thing is that our system turns all of us into spies on each other. And even when we are not, we behave as if we were. That is very sad,’ she said.
‘You are in a strange mood tonight, Cass,’ he said. He surprised himself by sounding almost sincere. ‘What has brought this on?’
‘I am frightened,’ she said.
‘There is nothing to be frightened of. Tomorrow we will win.’
‘Tomorrow we go against a god. A very old god.’
‘A very old god in a very new body which will not yet have learned to focus its power, and whose power is not warlike anyway.’
‘And which nonetheless has survived since before the time of Aenarion. The Everqueen was sacred to our people once as well, Dorian.’
‘Perhaps once, a long time ago, but we follow other gods now, stronger gods.’ It was strange to find himself arguing the religious line with her. She knew so much more about these things than he. Which perhaps was why she was so upset, assuming this was not just another one of the endless loyalty tests.