That was how he did it. He was never just a thug. Just thugs only ever got so far. The best thugs were all… — China Miéville

So long as it fated, fate didn’t care what it fated.

He had remembered Vardy’s melancholy, the rage in him, and what Collingswood had once said. She was right. Vardy’s tragedy was that his faith had been defeated by the evidence, and he could not stop missing that faith. He was not a creationist, not any longer, not for years. And that was unbearable to him. He could only wish that his erstwhile wrongness had been right.

This was the remnant of honour, nostalgic for spurious legendary times.