I gave her the small fraction of a bow her rank commanded and answered in the local custom. ‘You have the right of it, madam.’
‘We’re honoured to welcome you to Albaseat, King Jorg,’ she said through thin, dry lips and the scribe scratched the words across his parchment.
‘It’s a fine city. If I could carry it I’d take it with me.’
Again the scratching of the quill – my words falling so quickly into posterity.
‘What are your plans, King Jorg? I hope we can tempt you to stay? Two days would be sufficient to prepare an official banquet in your honour. Many of the region’s merchants would fight for the opportunity to bend your ear, and our nobility would compete to host you at their mansions, even though I hear you are already promised to Miana of Wennith. And of course Cardinal Hencom will require you at mass.’
I took pleasure in not waiting for the scribe to catch up, but resisted the temptation to pepper my reply with rare and difficult words or random noises for him to puzzle over.
‘Perhaps on my return, Provost. I plan first to visit the Iberico Hills. I have an interest in the promised lands: my father’s kingdom has several regions where the fire from the thousand suns still burns.’
I heard the quill falter at that. The old woman, though, did not flinch.
‘The fire that burns the promised lands is unseen and gives no heat, King Jorg, but it sears flesh just the same. Better to learn of such places in the library.’
She made no talk of postponing my trip until after her nobles and merchants had taken their bites of me. If I were bound for the Iberico Hills such efforts would wasted – money thrown into the grave as the local saying had it.
‘Libraries are a good place to start journeys, Provost. In fact I have come to you hoping that Albaseat might have in one of its libraries a better map of the Iberico than the one copied from my grandfather’s scrolls. I would count it a great favour if such a map were provided to me …’
I wondered how I looked to her, how young in my armour and confidence. From a distance the gaps between things are reduced. From the far end of her tunnel of years I wondered how different I looked from a child, from a toddler daring a high fall with not the slightest understanding of consequence.
‘I would advise beginning and ending this journey among the scrolls, King Jorg.’ She shifted in her chair, plagued no doubt by the aching of joints. ‘But when age speaks to youth it goes unheard. When do you plan to leave?’
‘With the dawn, Provost.’
‘I will set my scribe to searching for a map and have whatever he finds waiting for you at the North Gate by first light.’
‘My thanks.’ I inclined my head. ‘I hope to have some new tales to tell at your banquet when I return.’
She dismissed me with an impatient wave. She didn’t expect to see me again.
6
Five years earlier
Sunny and I made our way to the North Gate of Albaseat in the grey light that steals over the world before dawn. The streets thronged. In summer the Horse Coast bakes and only the earliest hours of the day offer respite. By noon the locals would retreat behind white walls, beneath the terracotta tiles, and sleep until the sun slipped from its zenith.
In the lanes leading to the gate and the wide plaza that lay before it, business had already started. Tavern doors stood open while men bore kegs in upon their shoulders, or lowered barrels into the cellars by the street-traps. Grey-faced women emptied slops from buckets into the gutters. We passed a smithy open to the road so that passersby could see the hammering and quenching and be tempted to purchase what took such sweat and force to craft. A lad hunched at the forge, poking life back into fires banked overnight.
‘Oh, to be still abed.’ Sunny yanked his packhorse away from some tempting refuse.
A cry turned us back toward the blacksmith’s. We had gone only a dozen steps beyond it. The smith’s boy lay in the street now. He pushed himself up from the flagstones, face grazed, shaking his head, unsteady. The smith paced out from his workshop and kicked the boy hard enough to lift him off the ground. The air left his lungs with a whuff. Under the dirt the boy’s hair looked fair, almost golden, rare this far south.
‘My money’s on the big fellow,’ I said. My brother Will had such hair.
‘He’s a big one, all right.’ Sunny nodded. The smith wore just a leather apron from shoulder to knee and leggings held up with rope. The muscle in his arms gleamed. Swinging a four-pound hammer from dawn till dusk will put a lot of meat on a man.
The child lay on his back, one arm half-raised, too winded to groan, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. I thought he might be eight, maybe nine.
‘Do I have to kick every lesson into you?’ The smith didn’t yell but he had the voice of a man who speaks over the anvil. He drove his foot into the boy’s head, the force rolling him once. Blood on the smith’s boot now, and staining the boy’s hair.
‘Ah, hell.’ Sunny shook his head.
We watched as the smith stepped in closer.
‘I should stop this,’ Sunny said, reluctance in every line of him. Something in the smith’s face put me in mind of Rike. Not a man to get in the way of.
‘Boys get kicked every day,’ I said. ‘Children die every day.’ Some have their heads broken against milestones.
The smith loomed above the boy, who lay curled now as if hunched against the pain. The man drew back for another kick, then paused, reaching a decision. He lifted his boot to stamp the life out of the lad. I guessed he thought him past use, best to finish him off.
‘They don’t die every day with one of Earl Hansa’s guards watching. The Earl wouldn’t want this.’ But still Sunny didn’t move. Instead he shouted. ‘You, smith, stop!’
The man paused, his heel a few inches above the side of the boy’s head.
‘I’ve picked up strays before and they both died,’ I said past a bitter taste. I saw blood in golden curls and felt the thorns’ tight hold. I learned this lesson young, a sharp lesson taught in blood and rain. The path to the empire gates lay at my back. A man diverted from that path by strays, burdened by others’ needs, would never sit upon the all-throne. Orrin of Arrow would save the children, but they would not save him.
‘He’s a street cur,’ the smith said. ‘Too stupid to learn. I’ve fed him for a month. Kept him under my roof. He’s mine to end.’ He brought his heel down hard, his weight upon it.
A loud retort of leather on stone. The boy rolled clear but lacked the strength to get up. The smith roared a curse – it drowned my own – the burn that stretched across my face from chin to brow as if a red-hot hand had branded me, now burned again with the same pain that it first gave. I’ve been told that conscience speaks in a small voice at the back of the mind, clear to some, to others muffled and easy to ignore. I never heard that it burned across a man’s face in red agony. Still, pain or no pain, I don’t like to be led or to be pushed. Perhaps I selected Balky as a kindred spirit for I took direction as poorly, even from my own conscience on the rare occasions it made a bid for control.
Sunny passed me, aimed for the smith. He hadn’t even drawn his sword.
‘I’ll buy him from you!’ I shouted. Sunny could come in handy and I guessed the smith would break his arms off before the idiot thought to reach for his blade.
That made the smith stop in his tracks, Sunny too, with a sigh of relief, and it quieted the pain. The smith eyed the silver on my breastplate, the cut of my cloak, and thought perhaps that his satisfaction might be worth less than the contents of my coin pouch.
‘What’s your offer?’
‘A contest of your choosing. You win and I pay you this for the boy.’ I held a gold ducet before my face between index and middle finger. ‘Lose and you get nothing for him.’ I magicked the coin away.
He had a good frown at that. The boy managed another roll and fetched up against the wall of the harness shop opposite.
‘Perhaps you think you can hold a hot ir
on longer than I can?’ I suggested.
The frown deepened into crevasses topped by the black band of his brows. ‘Strength,’ he said. ‘Who can hold the anvil overhead the longest.’
I glanced at the anvil a few yards back into the smithy. Perhaps two men of regular height might weigh as much. ‘Rules?’ I asked.
‘Rules? No rules!’ He laughed. He flexed an arm and muscle mounded on muscle. The Great Ronaldo would be impressed if Taproot’s circus ever made it to Albaseat. ‘Strength! That’s the rule.’
‘Show me how it’s done, then.’ I walked into the smithy. The glow of the forge fire and of two smoking lamps gave enough light to avoid the workbenches and various buckets. The place had a pleasing smell of char and iron and sweat. It reminded me of Norwood, of Mabberton, of a dozen other battles.
The smith followed. I set a hand to his chest as he passed me. ‘Your name?’
‘Jonas.’
He walked around the anvil. I glanced at the ceiling where tools hung from the beams. He would have just enough room. I would have plenty as he stood a hand taller than me.
Sunny stepped up behind me.
‘The boy’s still alive, I take it? I’m not doing this for a corpse.’
‘He’s alive. Might be hurt bad.’
Jonas crouched beside the anvil. He closed one big hand around the horn and set the heel of his other hand beneath the lip of the anvil’s face.
‘You’ve done this before.’ I gave him my grin.
‘Yes.’ He showed his teeth. ‘I can taste your gold already, boy.’
He tensed, building for the explosion that would drive the ironwork upward. That’s when I hit him, with a hammer from the nearest bench. I struck the side of his head just by the eye. The noise wasn’t dissimilar from his boot hitting the child. The hammer came away bloody and Jonas pitched forward over his anvil.
‘What?’ Sunny asked, as if somehow he hadn’t seen it in the half-light.
I shrugged. ‘No rules. You heard him.’
We left them both lying in their blood. Whatever fire ate at my face I didn’t need another stray, and even if the boy could walk, taking him to the Iberico would be more cruel than another month in Jonas’s care. At least the boy was sitting up and looking about, which was more than could be said for his master.
A corner and another street brought us to the plaza. We pushed a path through bakers’ boys with trays of loaves overhead, between laden farm carts ready to be offloaded onto the stalls already set to either side of the gate towers. The place heaved, late arriving traders made haste to erect their tables and awnings, and the townsfolk came mob-handed to buy, coins clicking in their hip pouches, eyes darting, hunting bargains in the predawn grey.
‘We’ll be lucky to find the provost’s man in all this.’ Sunny snatched at a passing bread roll and missed.
‘Have some faith, man,’ I said. ‘How hard is it to spot a king?’ I looped Balky’s reins over his pack-saddle and ran both hands through my hair, throwing the length of it wide across my shoulders and back.
We reached the gates, the smoothness of the wall stretching above us to the paling sky. Hooves clattered across the flagstones as we led our animals beneath and traversed a dark tunnel through ten yards of wall.
‘I’m to ride with you.’ A voice from the black shadows to the side of the exit.
‘There you go, Sunny, we are known.’ I turned and gave him my grin. The glow from the east caught the lines of his face.
The stranger broke from the shadows, a black clot moving to join us. A woman.
She drew close, her horse a tall black stallion, a dark cloak wrapping her as if she expected to be cold.
‘Did you bring a map for us?’ I held out my hand.
‘I am the map,’ she said. I could make out only the curve of her smile.
‘And how did you know us?’ I asked, returning my hand to the reins.
She said nothing, only touched her fingers to her cheek. My scars burned for a moment, another echo of Gog’s fire no doubt for I had surely forgotten how to blush long before.
Sunny held his tongue, but I could feel the smugness radiating off him behind me.
‘I’m Honorous Jorg Ancrath, king of somewhere you’ve never heard of. The grinning idiot behind me is Greyson Landless, bastard son of some venerable line that holds a few dusty acres along the Horse Coast best used for growing rocks. You can call me Jorg and him Sunny. And we’re walking.’
‘Lesha. One sixteenth of the Provost’s horde of grandchildren.’
‘Her granddaughter? I’m surprised. I had the impression that the Provost wasn’t expecting to see us return.’
It seemed that Lesha wasn’t going to answer for she rode a hundred yards in silence at our side as we led our animals away from the city.
‘I’m sure my grandmother’s assessment of the expedition is accurate and remains unchanged.’
I still could see nothing of her within the fold of her cloak but something in the way she held herself made me sure she was kind to the eye, maybe beautiful.
‘So why would she send you, Lady Lesha?’ Sunny asked. He broke the silence I’d left for her to fill. Often the lack of a question will prompt an answer, sometimes an answer to a question you might not have thought to ask.
‘She didn’t send me – I decided to come. In any case, she won’t miss me too much. She has plenty of grandchildren and I’m far from being her favourite.’
That left a long silence that none of chose to break. Lesha dismounted and led her horse beside us.
The dawn broke, a gentle fading of greys until the eastern sky grew bright with promise. At last the first brilliant corner of the sun poked above horizon, throwing long shadows our way. I glanced at Lesha then, and lost any sting from when she had touched her cheek to mark my scarring. Each part of her face had been burned as badly as the wound I bore. Her skin held a melted quality, as if it had run like molten rock then frozen once more. The burns surprised me, but less than the fact that she had survived them. She met my gaze. Her eyes were very blue.
‘You’re still sure you want to go to the Iberico?’ She pushed back her hood. The fire had left no hair, her scalp piebald in whites, unhealthy pinks, and beige, holes where her ears lay.
‘Damned if I am,’ Sunny gasped.
I reached out and took her reins so we both stopped in the road. Balky stood shoulder to shoulder with her horse, Sunny a few yards ahead, looking back.
‘And why are you so keen to return, lady?’ I asked. ‘Why not twice shy, for you’ve surely been bitten?’
‘Perhaps I’ve nothing to lose now,’ she said, her lips lumpy lines of gristle. She didn’t look away from me.
I closed my eyes for a second and a point of red light blinked against the back of my eyelids. Fexler’s tiny red dot, drawing me across all these miles.
‘And what desire drew you there in the first place? Did you think to find wealth in the ruins, or to come back to Albaseat a great and famed explorer?’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. Those are bad bets – not for a daughter of the provost’s family. I think the secrets called you there. You wanted answers. To know what the Builders hid there, yes?’
She glanced away then, and spat, like a man. ‘I found no answers.’
‘But that doesn’t mean the place holds none.’ I leaned in toward her. She flinched away, not expecting intimacy. My hand caught her around the back of that bald head, the skin rippled and unpleasant beneath my fingers. ‘It doesn’t mean that asking our questions is not the truest thing that creatures such as you and I can do.’ I drew her very close though she strained against it. She stood tall for a woman. ‘We can’t be trapped by fear. Lives lived within such walls are just slower deaths.’ I spoke in a whisper now, bowing my head until a bare inch stood between our faces. I half-expected her to smell of char, but she had no scent, not perfume, not sweat. ‘Let’s go there and spit in the eye of any who says the old knowledge is forbidden to us, neh?’ I kissed her cheek
then, because I feared to do it and though commonsense may occasionally bind me, I’ll be fucked if fear will.
Lesha snatched herself away. ‘You’re just a child. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But she didn’t sound displeased.
We rode until noon and took shelter from the sun in the shade of a stand of olive trees. The farmer’s wife proved enterprising enough to delay her own siesta and toil up the slopes to offer us wine, cheeses, and hard brown herb-bread. The old woman crossed herself briefly when she saw Lesha but had the grace not to stare. We set to the meal, and sent her back with an empty basket and a handful of coppers, enough for twice the amount of food were it served in a fine tavern.
‘Tell me about the Moors,’ I said to nobody in particular. The piece of cheese I licked from my finger was soft and crumbly both at once. It smelled like something that shouldn’t ever be eaten, but had a pleasingly complex and pungent taste.
‘Which ones?’ Lesha said. She looked asleep, stretched on the dusty soil, head pillowed on her bundled cloak at the base of the tree shading her.
She had a point. I’d seen at least a dozen Moors in Albaseat, wrapped in white robes, most of them all but hidden inside the hood of a burnoose, some trading, some just bound upon their business.
‘Tell me about the Caliph of Liba.’ It seemed a good place to start.
‘Ibn Fayed,’ Sunny muttered. ‘The thorn in your grandfather’s arse.’
‘Has he many like Qalasadi working for him?’ I asked.
‘Mathmagicians?’ Sunny asked. ‘No.’
‘There aren’t many like that,’ Lesha said. ‘And they don’t work for masters in any case. They follow a pure path. There isn’t much that men like that want.’
‘Not gold?’ I asked.
Lesha raised her ruined head to watch me then sat up against the tree. ‘Only rarities hold interest for their kind. Wonders such as we might find in the Iberico, but just as likely old scrolls from the Builder times, ways of calculating, old lore, the sort of cleverness that never seemed to get written down on anything that lasts, or at least that we can read.’
Emperor of Thorns Page 6