Maxilla turned and looked at me. 'Do you know what he said? Terfeuk? Do you know what he said of that terrible cost?'
I shook my head.
'He said it was the greatest honour of his life to have served the Emperor so well.'
'I'm happy for him/
You don't understand, Gregor. Terfeuk was no butcher. No glory hound. By all accounts he was humane, and beloved by his men as fair and generous. But when the time came, he did not regret for a moment the cost of serving the Emperor and preserving the Imperium against all odds/
Maxilla sat down again. 'I think that's all you're guilty of. Making hard choices to serve the Emperor the best you can, to serve him where maybe others would not be strong enough and fail. Doing your duty and living with the consequences. I'm sure dear Terfeuk had sleepless nights for years after Corossa. But he dealt with that pain. He didn't have any regrets/
'Committing men to battle is not quite the same as-'
'I beg to differ. Imperial society is your battleground. The people you have lost were your soldiers. And soldiers are only martial resources. They are there to be used. You used your own resources to win your battles. This book you speak of. This daemonhost. He sounds fascinating. I'd love to meet him/
'You wouldn't, I assure you. And it's an "it" not a "he".'
Maxilla shrugged. 'I fancy you wanted to talk to me about this because you thought you might get a sympathetic ear. Me being an old rogue and everything/ There were times, I swear, I believed Maxilla could read my mind.
'Let me tell you something, Gregor. I love you like a brother, but we're nothing alike. I am a rogue. A gambler. A liar. A reprobate. My vices are many and unmentionable. I never bend the rules; I break them. Snap them. Shatter them. However and wherever I may. In that regard alone, 1 am a kindred spirit. You are bending the rules of the Imperium, of the Inquisition. You are, undoubtedly, what they call a radical. But that's where the similarity ends. I break the rules for my own gain. To get what I want, to amplify my wealth and status. To make things better for me. Me. Just me. But you're not doing it for yourself. You're doing it for the system you believe in and the God-Emperor you worship and by damn, that means your conscience can be clean/
I was taken aback by the passion of his speech. I was also taken aback by the suggestion – one that no one had dared make before – that I had become a radical. When had that happened? My actions may have been radical but did that make me a radical to the marrow?