Canto Vale

Canto is remembered as a person with loyalties, injuries and a life beyond the contract used against him.

Appearance

Canto was a compact man with a shaved head and a broken nose, in the habit of touching Toma's back whenever he passed behind him.

In The Godless Priest

Canto Vale was a Penitent soldier and Toma's former lover and closest comrade. The two survived as altar-thralls together, passing notes through a drainage slot; Canto taught Toma the first obscene song used to break collective rhythm and witnessed his earliest contract amendments. They became lovers after their escape and separated and resumed several times, without any final ending. A clay bird he had given Toma later proved to carry a listening tongue, though whether Canto knew was never settled.

At the Black Banner Trial Canto's protection demon, contracted to "keep me in one piece until I leave the company", treated his entry into the trial circle as leaving. His ribs unfolded into a walking cage around his living organs. Canto asked Toma to kill him, named his small kindnesses and harms, and asked Cassian not to let Toma make command the only thing he was good at. Toma drove a sword through his heart. His company named him one voice at a time, and his death changed Penitent procedure, adding a hostile reading to every contract. His remains, the captured demon and the boot he had stolen from Toma were burned together.

After the books

Dies before the end of the books. Killed by Toma during the crisis; his death remains part of the moral record, not an excuse for anyone else. His death demands witness without simplifying the circumstances that made it possible.