Taymiri showed her to a spare bunk. Csorwe didn’t say much, suddenly fearful. Her plan was flimsy at best. It was only a matter of time before somebody realised she wasn’t who she said she was, and that she wasn’t meant to be there.
“You’re quiet, aren’t you?” said Taymiri. “Homesick, I expect. It’s not so bad here once you get used to it. I’ll show you ’round tomorrow.”
Csorwe lay awake in her bunk. She had got used to the sound of Grey Hook at night. The fortress was different: footsteps, echoes, chains, and the rumblings of great mechanisms.
There were no windows in the bunkroom, and the doors were shut at night. Only a flickering band of torchlight came in at the threshold.
All she needed to do was find a way to get Sethennai past the fortress without being noticed by the soldiers. They had been right to assume there was no use trying a direct approach. There must be another way. The fortress was older than the city itself, Sethennai had told her, and there were strange things under the earth: secret ways, secret rooms, and caves that reached deep beneath the desert.
She would need to use every moment she could to explore the fortress, to learn its ways and routines. There would be some way to sneak Sethennai through. She would do what she always did: she would work, and watch, and listen, and wait.
Once everyone else was asleep she unstrapped the knife from her leg and hid it under her mattress in the bunkroom. Just in case.
* * *
By the end of the first week everyone seemed to have accepted Csorwe’s presence. After three years travelling with Sethennai, Csorwe thought she might have forgotten how to deal with girls her own age, but it was just like being back in the House of Silence. She was used to living like this, elbow to elbow. It had its constants. Aggravation, thwarted hope, and gossip: each fed the other like the three-headed snake that had been advertised in Grey Hook’s Market of Curiosities. Most of the others were from poor families out in the sticks. They weren’t very interested in Csorwe, but they were grateful to her for taking on the duties they disliked, mostly carrying barrels up and down the stairs. Even better, they were busy enough not to notice that Csorwe was the first to take on any task that involved visiting restricted or inaccessible parts of the fortress.
Taymiri was the leader of the bunkroom, it turned out, because she had been there longest, and was both calm and ruthless. She liked Csorwe, or at least she liked Csorwe’s efficiency. She had ambitions beyond the kitchen, and saw Csorwe as a useful cat’s-paw, or even an ally.
Csorwe learned that Taymiri’s mother had been cut off by house and Church in Qarsazh for conceiving Taymiri while still unmarried. Taymiri’s ambition was to become rich enough that she could find her grandparents in Qarsazh and throw them out in the streets.
One afternoon, Csorwe was napping in the bunkroom, enjoying her allotted half hour’s rest before preparations for dinner. Taymiri came to Csorwe’s bunk and shook her briskly awake.
“Shh!” said Taymiri. “Come with me. I don’t want the others in on this.”
Csorwe dressed hurriedly and followed Taymiri out of the bunkroom to the winding darkness of the corridor. All the passages were close and narrow and uncomfortably warm. Csorwe wished too late that she had brought her knife, just in case, but there would have been no way to hide it from Taymiri.
“What’s happening?” she said, once they were clear of the bunkroom.
“Some of the General’s table staff are sick,” said Taymiri. “There’s a big dinner on and they need two from the kitchens to fetch and carry plates.”
Csorwe nodded, suppressing her excitement and alarm. Sethennai had told her to stay out of General Psamag’s way. But then … she had never seen the General’s quarters, and she needed more information if she was going to make progress. She had explored the fortress as thoroughly as she could, from the cellars up, but she knew there were regions that were closed to her. There were undercellars, and caves beneath the undercellars, and hollow passages in the walls that seemed to have no openings. It might be risky to cross paths with the General, but it would be idiotic to miss this opportunity to cover new territory. As a waitress she would be virtually invisible, and perfectly safe.
Taymiri was as agitated as Csorwe had ever seen her.
“And I’m not that type of girl, of course, but if I’m going to catch anyone’s eye I don’t see why it shouldn’t be one of the General’s officers,” said Taymiri as they hurried toward the stairs to the upper levels.
“Right,” said Csorwe. Stranger things had certainly happened.
“Maybe we can even find one for you, Soru,” said Taymiri, becoming magnanimous. This was what they all called her, an amendment of her real name, which suited the Tlaanthothei accent. It meant “sparrow.” “What kind would you prefer?”
Csorwe did not know what to say. She considered what Taymiri wanted in a man. “Rich?”
Taymiri slapped a hand over her mouth to stop the sound of her laughter ringing out in the hall. “Obviously. But apart from that!”
“I don’t know,” said Csorwe. After a pause: “Tall?”
For a while, back in Grey Hook, Csorwe had thought it was possible she was interested in one of her tutors, a broad-shouldered ex-mercenary with a pleasant smile. However, after careful observation she concluded that he was interested only in young men from the Pretty Birds Gentleman’s House of Entertainment.
“They’ll all be tall,” said Taymiri, and seemed to give up.
In a back pantry, Csorwe and Taymiri were met by an official, hardly any older than they were, who gave them a change of uniform.
The official was Tlaanthothei, like Sethennai, with dark brown skin, pointed leaf-shaped ears, and close-cropped curly hair. He had the basic shape of a wrought-iron railing and a look of focused, furious anxiety. His ears twitched every half a minute or so.
“General Psamag has certain requirements of his waiting staff,” he said, sounding like he had a cold, and glaring at Csorwe and Taymiri, plainly doubting their ability to meet those requirements. There followed a lecture on the placement of cutlery, delivered in a monotone. “There will be drinks, the General is going to make a speech, and then there will be three courses, like I explained. Any questions?”
“Think you’ll have any luck marrying him, Taymiri?” said Csorwe, once he had gone.
“That was Talasseres Charossa,” said Taymiri. “He is a puckered arsehole. Or, I guess, he’s our liaison from Chancellor Olthaaros. He’s here to try and tell the General what to do, even though everyone knows if General Psamag wanted to, he could throw Olthaaros out on his face, like they did with the old Chancellor.”
It was lucky for Csorwe that she was good at keeping a straight face.
“Did you say Charossa?” she said, after a decent interval. “Isn’t that the Chancellor’s name?”
“Oh, yes,” said Taymiri. “He’s his nephew. Probably why he got the job.”
Csorwe tucked that little piece of knowledge away for later consideration. Maybe it meant she ought to avoid Talasseres Charossa. Or maybe she ought to stay close and try to find out whom he spoke to, in case he gave anything away? Without Sethennai’s guidance she felt adrift. There were endless choices to make, hundreds of possible directions.
She reminded herself that she did have a plan. Tonight she was going to stay in the background and get a sense of the main players at the fortress, their loyalties and alliances. That was a useful place to start, and it would keep her safe and inconspicuous. Sethennai couldn’t object to that.
The upper levels of the fortress were surprisingly beautiful. Here the floors were of polished hardwood, the walls were hung with fine tapestries, and the dust sparkled in beams of sunlight from above. From somewhere close by, Csorwe could hear the sound of a woman singing. It was not at all how she had imagined the General’s personal quarters. It was almost disappointing.
The walls of the dining hall were crammed with hunting trophies. Boars, stags, the frail antelope of the Spee
chless Sea, lions and tigers, elephant heads and mammoth heads, side by side, philosophical in death: all stared down glassily from a dark expanse of hardwood panelling. The walls bloomed with horns and spines and crests, unfurling themselves across the panels like an exuberant moss of bone. Psamag had skimmed the riches of many worlds, and brought back their heads to be stuffed.
“Stop dawdling!” said Taymiri, who had already memorised everything she might need to know in this situation. She seized Csorwe’s arm and towed her down to the vast dining table, where the others were adjusting place settings. The other waiting staff were not pleased by the appearance of Csorwe and Taymiri, but they had no choice in the matter.
Beyond the table, at the far end of the hall, the floor dropped away into a pit. There was no rail to warn the unwary, just shining boards and then a sheer drop. From the dining table, Csorwe could not see what was in the pit. The others moved around the table with choreographed precision, paying it no mind. Csorwe kept quiet, as usual, and listened.
It seemed that this dinner was given in honour of Captain Tenocwe, the favourite of General Psamag, who had won some kind of victory on Psamag’s behalf out in the desert. If rumour was to be believed, Tenocwe was as handsome as he was fearsome, and he served in all things as the warlord’s right hand.
“Assuming he uses his left hand to … you know,” said one of the servants, and laughed.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said another. “Tenocwe is very devoted.”
Csorwe blushed. Obviously she had heard plenty of this kind of thing with the Blue Boars but she never knew how to respond to it.
None of them mentioned the pit in the floor. None of them even looked at it. Csorwe was kept too busy to go and inspect it, but it tugged at the edge of her attention. Before she had a chance to look any closer, they were instructed to file to the back of the hall and wait for the guests to arrive.
“Remember, I get first pick,” Taymiri whispered, bobbing on her toes. Csorwe nodded.
The officers filed in. All of them were Oshaaru, mostly huge and visibly scarred, their tusks chipped and cracked. One was missing a tusk altogether, making his face look oddly lopsided, half formed. Csorwe felt a twinge of sympathy, trying not to imagine how it must have felt to lose one.
Psamag had brought them all with him when he had come to work for Olthaaros. Tenocwe, that evening’s guest of honour, was younger than most, but just as battered. At the end of the line was the only civilian and the only Tlaanthothei among them: Talasseres Charossa, his clothes exquisitely pressed. In this company, he looked younger, unhappier, and more tightly wound than ever. He hadn’t got the ear twitch under control. Csorwe wondered what was bothering him so badly. He had seemed uptight when they’d met him earlier, but he now appeared to be an actual nervous wreck.
Two singers serenaded the guests as they took their seats. Csorwe recognised the voices from earlier, though she had assumed they were women. These appeared to be young men—both Qarsazhi, both ethereally lovely—but their voices were high, sweet, and piping.
“They’ve had their bits cut off so they sing better,” Taymiri hissed. “They do that in Qarsazh, sometimes,” she added, with a hint of national pride.
They waited for almost an hour, and the music gave Csorwe a headache. At last the grand doors opened, admitting, first, a pair of Oshaaru soldiers. They were identical, bald, gigantically muscular, and naked but for their sandals and their beaded loincloths. Their tusks were capped with shining hooks of brass, and they were clearly quite dead. Their flesh was pallid, except where it was veined black, and a smell of embalming fluid wafted along with them as they marched down toward the table. They were followed by two more, just as identical and just as dead, with little clouded eyes staring directly ahead of them.
Csorwe blinked. Of all the rumours about General Psamag, Sethennai had dismissed the revenant bodyguard the most quickly, yet here they were. Their clammy feet slapped on the parquet. Taymiri’s mouth fell open.
Csorwe felt like a spinning top wheeling off course. She hadn’t seen revenants since the House of Silence. This was necromancy out of the old country.
She had taken to thinking of Oshaar as the old country rather than home, though she had been gone for only three years, because she never intended to go back. But sometimes, it seemed, the old country could come to you.
The bodyguards took their positions, exact as automata, and General Psamag entered the room. Despite all the rumours, and all she’d learned, Csorwe was not prepared for the first impression of Psamag. He was white as a ghost, one-eyed, and handsome in the style of a shark. He was dressed in blackened chain mail, and wore his sword strapped to his back. His only ornament was a lump of jet on a chain around his neck. His tusks were sharpened to dagger points and his eye gleamed like cut diamond.
All this was not enough to convey the sheer force of his presence. This man held their lives in the palm of his hand. Taymiri released a barely audible gasp. Csorwe’s fingers tightened nervously on the cords of her apron as she tried to recover her focus.
The officers saluted, and Psamag strode to his place. Discreetly, four more dead bodyguards filed into the room behind Psamag and took their places.
“Well, my friends,” said Psamag. “Here we are. Let’s drink!”
There was a roar of approval from the officers, rattling the cups that Csorwe and the others had set out so neatly. For a while, Csorwe was kept busy going back and forth, filling and refilling drinks. The officers were hard drinkers, especially Tenocwe, who was making the most of his position as guest of honour. Csorwe couldn’t help noticing that Psamag drank no more than one cup, and his eye never lost its chilly gleam. Something was not quite right.
The older officers sitting closest to Psamag also seemed to sense that something was amiss. They laughed and boasted, but there was something hollow about it, something tense with expectation. Csorwe darted from seat to seat refilling glasses, watching them all as if this were a puzzle she could solve before things began to go wrong. As if she had any power at all to affect the course of events in this room.
Psamag’s second-in-command, an enormous old woman with a shaven head, didn’t laugh at all, and nor did Talasseres Charossa. Gradually, apprehension began to settle around the table, like falling ashes, and they all fell silent. Csorwe realised she was holding her breath.
“So,” said Psamag, without raising his voice. Csorwe watched Tenocwe hushing his friends on either side. “You all know why we’re here, but in case some of you are already too drunk to remember—Charossa, would you care to remind us?”
Psamag drew out the syllables of the Tlaanthothei name with open disdain. Talasseres Charossa winced.
“The victory of Captain Tenocwe, sir,” he said, seeming to know as he said it that it wasn’t going to be the right answer.
Psamag smiled, baring a row of sharp teeth between the mighty tusks. Talasseres relaxed for a moment, then jumped almost out of his seat as Psamag slammed one enormous fist into the table. The jet pendant around his neck bounced. “Incorrect! Guess again. Big Morga, you want a turn?”
Big Morga was the second-in-command. She watched the scene from under heavy eyelids, with a kind of world-weary amusement.
“We’re here because you put us here, sir,” she said.
“Now, Morga here has been with me since before most of you lot were tusked. You know why? Any takers? Surely one of you quick lads has got a smart answer for me?”
Silence.
“Morga’s got a firm head on her shoulders. She knows who put her here. She knows who holds this place. She knows who owns her loyalty. And she’s lived long enough to see fifty. You think maybe there’s what you’d call a correlation there, friends? I suggest you think on it.”
There was a pause, and the table staff came in to refill the cups, Csorwe among them. There had been no need for Sethennai to warn her away from Psamag. He was like a sharp cliff edge. He fixed your attention even as you wanted to back away. And he was not
yet finished with his speech.
“Still, Charossa’s got a point, hasn’t he?” he said. “Where’s my man Tenocwe? Stand up, there, son, let the others see the hero of the hour.” Psamag was clearly enjoying himself by now, and that worried Csorwe more than anything.
Don’t panic, she told herself. He doesn’t see you.
All his attention, in fact, was fixed on Tenocwe, who rose somewhat unsteadily to his feet. He gave an equally unsteady salute and grinned at his mates.
“We’ve all heard the tale, so I won’t bore you all with it now,” Psamag went on. “Tenocwe and his squad destroyed a whole pack of raiders in the Ramskulls, and raided their stockpiles for good measure. They won’t vex us again soon.” He paused, and looked around the table. “Come on! Let’s have a cheer for the man! My right hand, Tenocwe, everyone!”
The cheer rose rather ragged than enthusiastic. By now everyone knew something was wrong. Csorwe bit her lip, inadvertently driving her new adult tusks into her cheeks, hard enough to bruise the skin, and winced.
“They don’t sound too proud of you, Teno,” said the warlord, with terrible conciliation. “Funny, that. I wonder why?”
Tenocwe said nothing. Nobody said anything. In the horrible silence, there was nothing to be heard but a dry slithering sound in the pit. The high colour drained from Tenocwe’s face, and his eyes widened. The game, one way or another, was up.
The nearest servant, a few feet from Csorwe, was watching the scene with a fixed expression of wide-eyed terror. Csorwe’s pulse skittered like a bug trapped under a glass. Every instinct told her to run, or at least to close her eyes before she could see whatever terrible thing was certainly about to happen, but she could hardly move.
There was a shriek of wood on stone as Psamag pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. He strode down the dining table, and Csorwe had a vision of what it must be like to face this man in battle, rising like a dust storm. He stood over Tenocwe, dwarfing the younger man.
The Unspoken Name Page 9