The Lohvian Cycle I

Chapter fourteen

Chapter fourteenThe funeral of Leotes li Ningwan, Vad of Sabiling, turned out to be entirely different from what I’d unthinkingly expected.

Given that Kregen is a huge conglomeration of peoples with widely varying customs, one would still expect rituals and respects, however oddly at variance one with another they might be. Leotes, it seemed to me, standing in the shadow of a squat pillar in a gloomy domed hall, was just shuffled off.

His body still wrapped in the canvas in which he’d been laid in the caravan was brought in by four slaves and placed on the pyre. His children walked up and looked — I thought perfunctorily — and walked away. San Hargon was there, astringent as ever, apparently in a supervisory capacity. Strom Hangol was not present. Mevancy stood to the side, pale, tense;