No one else would do it, and the cleric was aware of terrors clinging to what remained of this day, building within himself. He felt trammelled, as in a fisherman's net of sorrows.

Deliberately, he let his approach be heard, scuffling at stones. Aeldred did not turn, stayed as he had been, gazing out at the water. Far off, beyond sight but not sailing, were the shores of Ferrieres. Carloman had taken the coast back from the Karchites in the spring, after two years of campaigning. A disputed, precarious shoreline, that one. It always had been. Everything was precarious, he thought. He was remembering fires in the farmyard at Brynnfell.

"Did you know," said Aeldred, not turning around, "that in Rhodias in the days of its glory there were baths where three hundred men could be bathing in cool water, and as many in the heated pool, and as many again lying at their ease with wine and food?"

Ceinion blinked. The king's voice was conversational, informative. They might have been, themselves, reclining at their ease somewhere. He said, carefully, "My lord. I did hear of such. I have never been there, of course. Did you see this yourself, when you went with your royal father?"

"The ruins of them. The Antae sacked Rhodias four hundred years ago. The baths didn't survive. But you could see… what they had been able to make. There are ruins here, too, of course, from when the Rhodians came this far. Perhaps I will show you, some day."

Ceinion thought he could discern the shape of what this was about. Men responded so differently to grief.

"Life was… otherwise, then," he agreed, being cautious. It was difficult; he was seeing fires in his mind. The breeze was strong here, but it was pleasant, not cold. It was from the east.

"I was eight years old when my father took me on pilgrimage," Aeldred went on. The same even, casual tone. He still hadn't turned around. It occurred to Ceinion to wonder how the king had known who it was who'd come walking over to him. His particular footfall? Or a simpler awareness that no one else would approach, just then?

"I was excited and impatient, of course," Aeldred went on, "but what you just said… that life was otherwise for them… that was clear to me, even when I was young. On the way, in one of the cities in the north of Batiara, where the Antae had their own court, we saw a chapel complex. Four or five buildings. In one of them there was a mosaic of the court of Sarantium. The Strategos-Emperor. Leontes."

"Valerius III. They called him `the Golden. "

Aeldred nodded. "There was a king," he said. A wave crashed and withdrew, grating along stones. "You could see it on that wall. His court around him. The clothing they wore, the jewellery, the… room they were in. The room they had. In their lives. To make things. I've never forgotten it."

"He was a great leader, by all accounts," Ceinion agreed.

He was letting this unfold. At the back of his mind, his pulse rapid with it, was the awareness of ships, and the east wind.

"I've read one or two chronicles, yes. Pertennius, Colodias. On the other wall I remember another mosaic, less good, I think. An earlier emperor, the one before him. He rebuilt the sanctuary, I think. He was there too, the opposite wall. I remember I wasn't as taken. It looked different."

"Different artisans, very likely," the cleric said.

"Kings depend on that, do you think? The quality of their artisans."

"Not while they live, my lord. After, perhaps, for how they are remembered."

"And what will men remember about—?" Aeldred broke off, resumed again, a different tone. "We shouldn't be forgetting his name," he murmured. "He built Jad's Sanctuary in Sarantium, Ceinion. How are we forgetting?"

"Forgetting is part of our lives, my lord. Sometimes it is a blessing, or we could never move beyond loss."

"This is different."

"Yes, my lord."

"What I was saying… about the baths. We have no space, no time to make such things."

He had been saying this, Ceinion remembered, at the high table after the banquet last night. Only last night. He said, "Baths and mosaics are not allowed to all of us, my lord."

"I know that. Of course I know. Is it… unworthy to feel their absence?"

This was not the conversation he'd been expecting to have. Ceinion thought about it. "I think… it is necessary to feel that. Or we will not desire a world that lets us have them."

Aeldred was silent, then, "Do you know, I always intended to take Athelbert, his brother, too, to Rhodias. The same journey. To see it again myself, kiss the ring of the Patriarch. Offer my prayers in the Great Sanctuary. I wanted my sons to see it and remember, as I do."

"You were fighting wars, my lord."

"My father took me."

"My lord, I am of an age with you, and have lived through the same times. I do not believe you have anything for which to reproach yourself."

Aeldred turned then. Ceinion saw his face in the twilight.

"Alas, but you are wrong, my lord cleric. I have so much in the way of reproach for myself. My wife wishes to leave me, and my son has gone."

They had arrived. Every man had his own path to such places. Ceinion said, "The queen is seeking to go home to the god, my lord. Not to leave you."

Aeldred's mouth crooked a little. "Unworthy, good cleric. Clever without being wise. Cyngael wordplay, I'd call it."

Ceinion flushed, which didn't happen often. He bowed his head. "We cannot always be wise, my lord. I am the first to say that I am not."

Aeldred's back was to the sea now. He said, "I could have let Athelbert lead the fyrd last night. He could have done it. I didn't need to be here."

"Did he ask for it?"

"That is not his way. But he could have dealt with this. I had just come back from my fever. I had no need to ride. I should have left it to him." His hands were fists, Ceinion saw. "I was so angry. Burgred…"

"My lord—"

"Do you not understand? My son is dead. Because I did not let—"

"It is not for us to say what will be, my lord! We do not have that wisdom. This much I do know."

"In that wood? Ceinion, Ceinion, you know where he went! No man has ever—"

"Perhaps no man has tried. Perhaps it was time to lay to rest old fears, in Jad's name. Perhaps a great good will come of this. Perhaps…" He trailed off. There was no great good that he could see coming. His words were false in his own ears. There was that image of burning in him, here by the cool sea, as the moon rose.

Aeldred was looking closely at him now. He said, "I have been greatly unjust. You are my friend and guest. These are my own concerns, and you have a grief here. There is a reason Prince Owyn's son went into the spirit wood. My sorrow, cleric. We were too slow, riding. We needed to be here before the ships cast off."

Ceinion was silent. Then he said, as he ought to have said at the beginning, with the dark coming on, "Pray with me, my lord. It is time for the rites."

"There is no piety in my heart," said Aeldred. "I am not in a state to address the god."

"We are never in a state to do so. It is the way of our lives in his world. One of the things for which we ask mercy is that inadequacy." He was on familiar ground, now, but it didn't feel that way.

"And our anger?"

"That too, my lord."

"Bitterness?"

"That too."

The king turned back to the sea. He was still as a monolith, as a standing stone planted on the strand by those who lived here long ago, and believed in darker gods and powers than Jad or the Rhodian pantheon: in sea, in sky, in the black woods behind them.

Ceinion said, again, "We must not presume to know what will come."

"My heart is dark. He… should not have done what he did, Athelbert. He is not without… duties."

They were back to the son. Not a child any more.