I start to speak, but halfway through the sentence I have to swallow and clear my throat. I stare at the wall behind Columen’s head and start again. I can do it. If I don’t meet his eyes, I can do it. ‘He says, who’s next in line after you?’
Columen blinks, once. ‘No one. Not until I have a son.’
‘He says, no one –’
Mathon slaps him, hard, across the face. I see Iaspis squeeze her eyes shut and clench her fists. When I look back at Columen he has a bead of scarlet swelling on his lower lip; as I watch, a drop of red slides down to his chin. ‘Who?’ He takes Columen’s jaw in his hand and leans towards him. ‘It must be someone here. So who? The talkative one? The little tart in the low-cut dress? Or the brat? Which one?’
Columen doesn’t wait for me to translate. He knows how this works; maybe he’s done it himself, trying to get information out of a Mereish slave. He swallows and shakes his head. ‘No one. Just me.’
This time he sees it coming. He has time to breathe out, to force himself to relax, the way you’re meant to, so that the blow doesn’t meet as much resistance. But even so, he can’t stop himself crying out. It takes him longer to straighten his head, this time.
‘Ask him again.’
‘Mathon – maybe he’s telling the truth –’
Mathon turns to look at me, his brow creased in a look of incredulous disgust. ‘Ask him again, clever boy.’
‘But –’
‘You want a taste of it too, do you? Meidburuchtts lyshe, whose side are you on, anyway? Ask him again.’
I swallow. ‘Columen . . .’
Columen gives a quick spurt of laughter; a bubble of red spittle slides down his chin. ‘Let me guess: who’s next in line after me?’ His words are slurred, as though something’s broken in his mouth.
‘Why don’t you just tell him?’ Please. Then he won’t hit you again. Please.
He looks at me with such pitiless, inexorable contempt in his face that it takes my breath away. Then he turns his head away, so that he’s looking straight at Mathon. ‘There’s no one. And he’s a fool, a foeda, copulatus idiot, if he doesn’t know that.’ A pause. ‘You’d better translate that for him.’
Mathon narrows his eyes. ‘What did he say?’
‘Just that – there’s no one . . .’
There’s a pause; I have time to think, Maybe he won’t hit him, maybe he won’t – before he does, slamming all the weight of his hand into Columen’s face. This time there’s an audible crunch as well as Columen’s gasp, and he staggers and slips sideways so that the guard has to hold him up, cursing.
Mathon flexes his fingers one by one, like a xixa player limbering up. ‘Tell the little glydd I can keep this up as long as he wants.’
There’s no need to tell him that. He knows. Instead, I say, ‘Please – Columen – just tell him. Please. What harm can it do?’
He opens his eyes. It takes him a second to focus on my face. ‘Did you tell him what I said?’
‘Not exactly. Columen, please –’
He braces himself against the guards and brings himself back up to standing. It makes me feel sick, watching him move so awkwardly, so painfully. He takes a deep breath. Then he tilts his head at an insolent angle. ‘Du varesh meidburuchtts ryglyng shudfargtte.’ He can’t move his mouth much; but the words are careful, and clear.
Mathon shakes his head, as though he can’t believe what he’s heard. ‘Oh, so you speak Mereish, do you, you little bastard?’ Then in one quick movement he puts his hands heavily on Columen’s shoulders and jerks his knee up into his groin. Columen gives a little gentle sigh, as though he’s just realised something. Then he drops silently to his knees and curls over. For a second he’s absolutely still. Then, suddenly, he’s retching and sobbing and moaning with pain. His hands scratch uselessly at the stone floor, as though he could dig his way out; his face is wet. I make myself look away. Some of the trecho pieces are on the floor near my feet, and I stare at them, trying to work out which ones are missing. The hand, the knot, the rose . . . but I feel as though Columen’s gasps are coming from me, as though it’s my knees that have given way, me that’s pulling desperately at the stones. This is all my fault. I can’t bear it.
Mathon says, ‘So. Who’s next in line?’
At first I don’t think Columen’s heard. He’s still bent over, eyes blank and intent, as if he’s looking for something on the floor. He scrubs at his face with the heels of his hands, wiping away the wetness. He’s taking deep breaths; I can see him fight the impulse to vomit. But after a few seconds he looks up. For a moment, from the expression on his face, I think he’s going to give in. He coughs, swallows, raises his eyes to Mathon. ‘No one.’ He says it very softly. Then he says it again. ‘No one.’
Mathon flicks a look to me, to check that it’s still the same answer. Then he draws his foot back. He’s going to kick Columen in the face.
‘Wait – wait –’
Mathon sighs heavily. He pauses, his leg still poised to kick Columen, and turns his face to me. ‘What?’
I lean forward, drop to my knees, so that I’m eye to eye with Columen. ‘Columen, please, you’re going to have to tell him. Just do it now. Please.’
Columen closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them he’s looking me straight in the eye. There’s no expression in his face at all. ‘Cacas,’ he says. Fuck you.
I stand up again. I turn to Mathon. ‘His sister, he says. The girl there, in the blue dress.’
‘Good. We’re making progress.’ Mathon looks down at him, one side of his face screwed up into a thoughtful grimace. ‘Now . . . I wonder if you’re telling the truth?’
‘No, don’t –’ but it’s too late. Mathon’s already stamped on Columen’s shoulder blade, grinding down with a quick twist of his heel.
Columen jerks, crying out wordlessly. Then he rests his face against the stone; a drop of water slides down towards his jaw. ‘Oh, mama meretrix . . .’ It sounds like a plea.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘That he’s telling the truth. He’s had enough.’
‘Hmmm.’ Mathon looks down at him, rubbing the back of one hand against his beard. He turns to one of the guards. ‘What do you think? You reckon she’s his sister?’
The guard – the young one, who doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing – looks helplessly at Iaspis and back at Mathon. ‘Well – they do look a bit the same, Captain.’
Mathon nods. ‘You’re right. They do.’ He stares at Iaspis; she tries to meet his eyes, but in the end her gaze falters and she darts a glance at Columen. She’s gone white as yshwyt, winter ice. Mathon clicks his fingers at me. ‘Ask her if she’s his sister.’
I clear my throat and try to catch her eye. ‘He wants to know if you’re Columen’s sister.’ She’s still watching Columen in a kind of horrified trance. ‘Iaspis. He says are you Columen’s sister?’
She looks up at me. ‘You pathetic little traitor, you –’ and there’s a string of words I’ve never heard before, although I can guess what most of them mean. No one interrupts her. ‘You cunnus, copulatus cunnus, foeda catamite, you cacate serpens . . .’ Then her voice cracks and she starts to cry.
Mathon has a smile playing round his mouth. It makes me think suddenly of the jokes Evgard soldiers make about raping Mereish maidens. ‘Was that a yes or a no?’
I don’t look at him. ‘Yes.’
He nods again, satisfied. ‘Yes . . . that makes sense. Both pretty feisty, aren’t they?’ But he doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘Right. Get them down to the dungeons. The one with the machinae in it.’ He doesn’t seem to notice the irony of the Evgard word; or the way Columen looks up when he hears it. Machinae. For the first time it strikes me as odd, that the Mereish don’t have a word for instruments of torture.
Mathon kicks Columen one more time, perfunctorily, as though it’s just for the principle of the thing. Then he walks back towards the door. ‘I want them there in two shandeir, all right? If not sooner.�
�� He turns to me. ‘Can you write? Mereish and Evgard?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Find something to write on and follow them to the dungeons. You can be the scribe.’ He winks, mirthlessly, so that for a moment I think he’s got something in his eye. ‘The first Evgard-Marydd treaty. The Treaty of Arcaster, recorded by the Traitor of Arcaster. You’ll be making history, boy.’ He leaves, gurgling with laughter.
A Treaty of Arcaster. Columen would never sign it. He’d die first.
The guard, the young one, looks helplessly at his comrade. ‘Where are we taking them?’
The older guard makes a scraping noise in the back of his throat and spits a gobbet of phlegm; not exactly at Columen, but not away from him, either. ‘Didn’t you hear him, you dozy get? The dungeons, he said. The one with the machinae.’
‘Yeah, but where’s that? I don’t know where it is. How could I? I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve been stuck in this horrible little room, ever since we got in. I haven’t even had time to have a look round –’
‘Oh, for fargtt’s sake, stop whingeing!’
I force myself to look away from Columen, who’s bent over with his forehead on the floor. I swallow and say casually, ‘It’s just to the north of the South-West Tower, underneath the kitchens – if you go down the stairs from here you take the first on the right, past three corridors on the left, take the next left, down one flight of stairs, along a bit, down another flight of stairs, along the gallery, there’s a window on the right, you’ll see it, then you go through the little chamber and –’
‘Varesh meither, I can’t remember all that!’ The younger guard rubs the back of his neck with one hand. ‘You’d better come with us. Show us the way.’
I take a long, steady breath. Then I frown. ‘I don’t know . . . I’ve got to find some parchment or something. For the treaty. That’s what Mathon said.’
‘Do that afterwards. Come on, mate. Do us a favour. We’ll take care of the prisoners – you just show us where to go.’
‘I suppose I could.’ For a moment my heart is beating so hard my knees are too weak to hold me up. I squat down suddenly, leaning forward with my hands on the floor. I pick up a trecho piece and hold it in front of my eyes, as though I just wanted to look at it, and wait for my breath to come easily again.
‘Great. Good man.’ The guard turns to the older one. ‘You’ve got the keys to the chains, right?’
The other guard nods without saying anything and gets a bunch of keys out of the pouch at his side. I don’t dare to watch him unlock Columen and Iaspis; I’m scared he might see the desperation, the hope in my eyes. Instead I look at Ryn.
She’s bent over, her hands on her knees, breathing heavily. As I watch she shudders and coughs, then wipes her mouth with her hand.
‘Ryn, are you all right?’
She straightens and shrugs. She’s very pale; you can see all the veins in her face, a net of blue under translucent skin. ‘I’m fine . . . just tired. I haven’t slept for four days. And all this . . .’ she looks at Columen. ‘It’s not much fun.’
‘No.’
She coughs again. ‘But I’m all right. And we have to do it.’ For a second her eyes light up. ‘Imagine it, Argent – a treaty between Evgard and Marydd. No more raids. No more slavery.’
‘But if –’ I bite my lip, just too late. But if we tortured people to get it . . . if you put Columen on the Salamandron’s Tail so that he’ll sign it . . . if Columen dies, like that . . .
She stares at me. ‘But what?’
‘Nothing.’ I nod vehemently. ‘Yes. It would be miraculous. Wonderful.’
‘Yes. It would.’ She looks at me and all of a sudden her face is so sad. I don’t know why. ‘Oh, Argent . . .’ For a moment there’s such tenderness in her voice, and it makes me sad, too, because if she’d looked at me like that two months ago I would have kissed her. Now I just stare back, wishing we were at home and none of this had ever happened.
The guard says, ‘You coming, or what?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m coming.’ I turn to Ryn, trying to keep my voice matter-of-fact. ‘How about you? Are you coming, too? Or should you go back to the Square Gallery?’
‘I –’ Ryn coughs dryly, more violently than seems necessary. ‘I’d better get back. You go ahead. I’ll see you later.’
‘Right.’ My tone’s as neutral as I can make it; I’m trying to hide my relief. I give her a casual, friendly smile, and turn back to watch the guards hauling Columen to his feet. The other prisoners are looking studiously away; Iaspis is already standing straight, one hand pressed flat on the bodice of her dress. Her shoulders are rising and falling with each breath.
‘Right. Quick march,’ the guard says, pushing Columen in front of him; I think he must be joking, because Columen can hardly walk. The other guard, the older one, takes Iaspis’s arm without ceremony and pulls her after him. ‘Lead on, then, clever boy.’
I turn away, spinning on one heel as though I’m completely at ease, and go down the stairs. Somewhere behind me I hear their footsteps following me – two sets of heavy footsteps, a light, elegant step that must be Iaspis’s, and an unsteady, determined pace that makes my throat ache unbearably. Then there’s the sound of the third guard locking the doors again. I keep my eyes on the stairs, in case anyone can see my face.
Down the stairs. First on the right, along the corridor to the end, and then left. A flight of stairs, which are narrow and dark and might be a good place for a fight, except that there’s nowhere to escape to. Along a bit – no good, too much space, too much light – another flight of stairs . . . Then the West Gallery, with the Sunset Window. There’ll be a lot of light from the window, and it won’t be cramped enough to favour the element of surprise. But at the end of the room there’s a secret door and a passage that goes down to the Underlake. And from there you can row to the staircase that takes you right up into the Closed School.
The West Gallery, then.
I slow down at the bottom of the stairs and wait for the guards to catch up. I can feel my heartbeat in the roof of my mouth, racing, like wings beating against my palate. It’s a few seconds before they come into view, round the last curve of the staircase: Iaspis first, treading lightly, head held high; then the older guard; then Columen, walking steadily now, ungainly and limping, but walking; then the younger guard.
I beckon. ‘This way.’
‘Right.’ The older guard pushes Iaspis forward, dirty hands on her bare shoulders, and she walks past me. As she passes she shoots me a look of utter, utter disdain. But it’s not like the looks she used to give me, after Columen won me from their father. Now there’s an edge of fear in it, a deeper resentment. It’s the difference between how you’d look at a worm and how you’d look at a traitor. I think I prefer it.
But Columen’s face . . . it’s empty. I always imagined that despair was something you could see in someone’s eyes, or smell, like fear, but now I know it’s not like that. His expression is neutral, blank, as though he’s dead already. There’s no hope, no choice. It’s calm – serene, even. But it’s the worst thing in the world.
And if I wasn’t sure before, I am now. I’d do anything to undo the damage. I swallow. I have to bite my lip, hard, to stop myself saying, Don’t worry, I’ll get you out, I promise, I’ll do anything it takes . . . He doesn’t even look at me as he goes past.
Across the passage, and down the second flight of steps. Into the West Gallery, and as we walk into the great blaze of coppery red light from the window my whole body tenses with fear and anticipation. I don’t have much time; only a few seconds, the time it takes to walk the length of the gallery. Go on . . . but suddenly I know it’s useless. I’ll get us all killed, or worse. In my mind’s eye I can see the machinae in the dungeon – choke-pears, the rack, the Salamandron’s Tail, the Old Man of the Sea – and a tongue of bile rises in my throat. I can’t. I can’t. I’m not brave enough. I can’t do it.
And anyway, why should I? I’m Mereish
, for hell’s sake, I’m on the other side. I’m from Skyph; I’m Mereish. And Ryn’s right: they’re not like us. You have to stick to your own kind. I don’t owe them any allegiance, these bloody Evgarders, I don’t owe them anything . . .
Columen stumbles. His shirt is dark and dank with sweat. Automatically, without thinking, I move to help him, holding out my hand. And automatically, without thinking, he takes it and pulls himself back to standing. There’s a tiny, tiny silence. We look at each other. Then he turns away.
The guard says, ‘Hey, what do you think you’re –’
I whirl round, pointing at the window. ‘Varesh meither – look!’
He’s distracted for a moment. ‘What?’
‘The light! There must be a fire somewhere – the city must be burning!’
The guards swap a glance. Then the older one says, in the sort of loud, slow voice you’d use to talk to a child, ‘It’s the sun setting. We’re facing west.’
I look from one to the other. ‘But the sun set ages ago! At least a shandeir and a half ago. It can’t be the sunset. Don’t you know what time it is?’ I think, This is stupid. This can’t work – it can’t possibly work . . .
But they swap another glance, uneasy now, half convinced already. The older one says, ‘Shud . . . It’s true. I saw the sunset when I went out to take a leak, two shandeirim ago. It must be dark now.’
‘But . . .’ The younger one twists round to stare at the window, the lovely glaring unwavering red of the sunset. ‘But – if another fire’s broken out . . .’ There’s real dread in his voice; they’ve seen what fire can do, these two, they know what it’s like.
‘We have to tell Mathon! Otherwise, it could spread.’ My voice cracks with urgency and hope. If the same trick can work twice . . .
The older one stares for a long moment at the window. I can see his mind working: if there’s a fire, and Mathon doesn’t find out about it until it’s too late, there’ll be hell to pay. He looks back at me, and the younger guard, weighing up the possibilities. But these men aren’t as well trained as the Evgard soldiers; they don’t stay at their posts come world-end or winter. He says, ‘Right. You take them down to the dungeons. I’ll go to the Square Gallery and tell Mathon there’s a fire in the West Quarter.’
The Traitor Game Page 21