by Tim Stead
Yet she was. By chance and luck she was somebody, here and now. She did not know, could not say why or for how long. She smiled at the maid.
“Thank you, but something cold would be very welcome. Is the sausage really good?”
The young girl smiled back, a little smile. “It’s not grand or anything,” she said. “Not as sweet as the ham, but spicy.”
“Well, perhaps a couple of small slices,” she said. “And a slice of ham and some bread.”
“Would my lady like some fruit? Wine?” That was bolder. The maid was more confident now that her head had not been snapped at, and her lady seemed kind.
“Oh, fruit would be very good, but just water will do, if it’s sweet.”
“I’ll fetch it for you at once, and I’ll bring some lamps that you may continue with your work.” With another bow, brisker this time, the maid was gone. Sara realised that she had not asked the girl her name, and that was rude of her. She made it a rule; she must always ask the name of anyone she spoke to, and she must remember them all. It was odd, because she had always know the name of everyone she dealt with, and now she was among strangers, even those whose names she knew. Everything was strange here. Back in the tannery cottage among all the other tannery people, tanners and dyers and chemical men and their wives, she had been comfortable and Saul had been well liked, and so had she. Now everything was in the wind, a grand throw of dice in the face of adversity, but Sara was not afraid. She was uncertain, she was struggling, but it was all quite exciting.
The maid was back sooner than she expected, and Sara was still gazing into space, thinking on the changes in her life when the girl pushed the door open with a broad tray weighed down by a large plate, a jug and a glass. Three lamps, already lit, hung from her fingers beneath the tray. She put it on the corner of the table and carefully put the lamps down.
“There you are, my lady,” she said. Sara studied the tray. There was more food on it than she had ever eaten before. The ham was thick and pink, and three rounds of mottled Afaeli sausage, almost as big as the slices of bread they cosied up to, lay beside an apple, a pear, and a bunch of red grapes. A small, round cheese finished the platter. She and Saul had often eaten half so much between them.
“Thank you,” she said. “Will you tell me your name?”
There was a moment of doubt on the girl’s face again, but she bobbed her head again. “Lira, my lady,” she said.
“Thank you, Lira. If I ring again will you come, and not another?”
“As you wish, my lady.” Lira blushed and smiled at the same time, bobbed her head yet again and retreated hastily from the room. Sara smiled to herself. She liked the girl. She was probably brighter than her tasks called for, or so Sara judged. If she was to live like this she would need an ally, someone to take her side, and she thought that Lira might be that.
She moved the tray so that it was next to the book she had been reading, and arranged the lamps so that they shed their light over its pages, and with another glance at Saul she began to eat. Work, the girl had called it. Could this really be work? She turned over one of the buttery pages and began to read again, one hand reaching out from time to time to the food. The maid had brought a sharp little knife and when she needed to she put the book aside and cut pieces off the ham and sausage. It was good food, better than she was used to. The ham was very sweet, and the sausage very spicy, and she wondered if this was what lords and ladies ate all the time. It was a wonder they were not all quite fat.
She could not imagine what was happening in the rest of the house. She had not seen anyone apart from Lira since Henn has sent her back to the library and told her to stay there, but she didn’t mind. It was warm enough, she had Saul with her, plenty of food, and the book was entertaining her better than she had hoped.
The Mage lords, the god mages, the twelve of them, were determined to vie for control of the entire world, it seemed. The greatest of them all, the one that they all feared, was called Cobranus, also named the lord of pain. He gathered around him those that feared him most: the weak, the wicked, the very worst. With Cobranus they were the seven, and with him they plotted to destroy the five. They created a spell, a magic so terrible that one of the seven, the Mage Ilianus, ended himself rather than take part in its casting.
Yet still the spell was cast, and nine creatures were created. They were demons so powerful that the mages who had created them failed utterly to control them, and were destroyed by their own creation. The creatures, called dragons, spread out across the world and killed all they found wherever they went. They could not be pierced by sword or lance, passed through fire unharmed, and had the strength of five hundred men, or so it was said. They were large, winged lizards, clever as the wisest man, remorseless as time, and they did what they had been made to do.
The last five mages, cruel as they were, godlike as they might have been, saw what had come to pass and knew the horror of their mistakes. Their war was bringing to an end the age of man in the world, and soon there would be nothing left, no cities, no forests, no life at all, for the dragons in their terrible mage born rage had the power even to enter the ocean and kill what dwelled there.
The five mages came together to cast a new spell. Corasilus called for a new fire that could burn even the air, to take away the breath of the dragons. Setricus demanded that they create a sword that could cut through all things, even the ties that bound the dragons to being, and a shield that could not be breached. Porastus spoke for a net that could catch even thoughts and dreams that the dragons might be snared and held until a way to undo them could be found. Iarranus wished them to build a lamp that, once lit would give forth a light unbearable by dragonkind. But the last mage, Pelianus, struck the floor with his staff and demanded their silence. All the power of the seven had failed to hold back the dragons he told them, and the seven had created them, and knew them. How then should the lesser five prevail with swords and nets and fire and light?
The other mages knew this for wisdom in their hearts and asked the fifth mage what then should be done.
Pelianus told them that the dragons could not be defeated, but that hope was not lost, because they could be remade. ‘I will do this thing, because I see the way that it may be done,’ he said. ‘I will open their eyes.’
And he went away from them for twenty days, and when he returned he held a spell in his hand that looked like a great jewel, and the other mages wondered at it, but one of them, Porastus, mocked the spell, and said that such a thing was only a temptation for the mighty beasts, and lacked the power to subdue them.
Pelianus heeded him not, but went forth to where the dragons ravaged the land and held up the jewel before their eyes, and those great creatures that beheld it flinched from their work of destruction and fled from the light to hide in deep caverns beneath the earth, but Pelianus pursued them and held the jewel again before them, and so troubled were the dragons by the sight that four of the nine were turned to stone, and the five that remained cast themselves down before Pelianus and begged him to take the jewel away, for as he had promised the jewel had opened their eyes, and they knew what they had wrought in the world, and the burden of death and pain and suffering crushed them down.
So it was that Pelianus became lord of the dragons, and they were bound to him and did his bidding.
She looked up from the book. It was quite dark outside now and Saul was still sleeping contentedly. It was so quiet she could hear him breathing. She did not know how much time had passed, but it must be late.
She was surprised to have reached the end of the tale. What followed in the book was an index, a list of places, people and events and the pages of the book on which they were mentioned. Beyond that there were more notes that seemed of little interest and right at the end there was a history of the book, or at least of previous versions of it.
The first line said: Translated from the magic to the common by…
Magic? Translated meant that it was changed from one langua
ge to another, she knew that, but was magic a language? They it occurred to her that it might be the language of the mages, and that rather than magic with the a from bag, it was magic with the a from page – mage-ic. She was pleased with herself for working that out. It seemed so obvious now that she’d thought of it.
But what was common?
The next line said: Translated from the Keffish Common tongue to High Avilian…
Avilian she knew well enough. She spoke it. But High Avilian…? She did not think that lords spoke a different tongue from her. She had never heard her lord – she thought of the lord of Latter Fetch that way now – speak anything she could not understand. Keffish Common was clearly the same thing as common, but once there had been no need to call it Keffish.
The third line solved the question for her: Rendered in the Universal Avilian way of speech…
Universal meant everybody, she thought. The writer had used the word a couple of times in the text, and his extravagant rephrasing had been enough to make it almost an old friend by now.
She closed the book, and it shut with a slap, a puff of air scented with age and ink. Sara was well pleased with her evening. She had learned new words, she had read a book, and she had eaten a very fine meal. Perhaps there would be a future for her here after all.
A noise turned her head. She turned and looked behind her, towards the door, and saw that there was a man standing there. She recognised him at once, although she had seen him for only a few minutes earlier in the day. She recognised the tall, thin frame, the sparse grey hair and the stoop of his thin shoulders. She also saw the knife in his hand, a long bladed, wicked, grey steel thing, and the smile on his face.
“Sara, Sara,” he whispered. “A northern name, an old name.”
“It is,” she said, and was surprised that her voice seemed strong and loud.
“And you came here with the lordling, but you’re not his flesh. No, you’re less than that. His, though, are you?”
“What do you mean?” She was watching his knife now. The long blade was quite still. There was no tremor in his old hands.
“Is the boy his?”
“No,” she said, thinking that this at least would make Saul safer. “Mine and his father’s, but he’s dead in the war.”
“Yes,” the steward nodded, “Yes, but something’s there. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You’re his prize, his toy, his whore.”
“I am not,” and her voice found a note of genuine anger.
“No? Not yet? But soon, yes.”
“No.”
“You think you can stop him? I’ve seen it before. He’s promised you things. I know he has. His father was the same. Promises, promises and all just air. He’ll come for you in the night and you’ll say yes. You’ll say yes for the boy, but he’ll get bored. They do, the lords, they get bored and throw you young girls away. I’ve seen it. But I can offer you better.”
“Better?” It was all the question that she could manage. She’d seen the way the lord looked at her, too, and she knew nothing of lords and their ways.
“Yes, better. I can offer you Latter Fetch, the whole thing.”
“It’s not yours to offer,” she said. He was a servant, no more. And yet…
“I’m old,” the steward said. “Contrary to my wish I will not live for ever, nor longer than a few year, I guess. If I win this little tussle there needs to be one that comes after me, and that might be you, steward, ruler of this little kingdom.”
“I am no ruler.”
“Yes, but you might be. Just bring the boy and come with me to where I hide. You’ll be the bait that draws the lordling out, for he will not resist the threat to your pretty flesh.”
“And if I say no?” She did not trust him. He had eyes that would not rise to meet hers, and his hand gripped that evil blade and never let it waver, though he was four paces from her. He meant to kill Saul, her and Saul both, and she would not permit that.
“You’ll die,” he smiled. “You’ll die here and now.”
Her hand had been searching behind her back, and it had found the small knife that Lira had brought her. It was a sharp little thing, but long enough to do the job, she thought. Now she showed it to him.
“You think I am a soft woman, old man,” she said. “But I was brought up in a broken house, and saw enough of the street to know you for what you are. There is no promise you could make that would bind you. There is no thing you could swear that would make me trust you. Kill me if you think you can, but it will cost you, and you will not touch the boy.”
“You think so?” His voice was mocking, but his eyes flicked to the knife and his old brows crumpled a little more at seeing it. There was doubt, and a little doubt was all that Sara needed.
“You could run,” she said. “Run away.”
The steward’s smile turned into a sneer, a rictus of hate and fear with hardly any change in his face at all. Perhaps it had been there all along; modified by the hope of an easy kill, and now it was stripped and naked.
He took one step forwards, and stopped. “Will you scream when I stick you?” he asked. “Not for the pain. I know you’ll bear that. But knowing that I’ll stick the little pig in his gut and what that will do.”
Sara said nothing. Answering him would be weakness. It was what he wanted. Instead she looked at where she might stick her knife. Heart, head, neck, there were many places that would kill him. It was up to him, depended on what he did.
She put herself between him and Saul. She should have pulled the bell rope, she thought; as soon as she saw him. People would have come. But then how many mistakes do we make in a life? How many times does a wrong decision end in tragedy? Once is enough. Once is enough for anyone.
She held the knife firmly in her hand, chose her spot, the place where it would rest, and waited for him to come. Three paces. That was the distance, and behind her Saul began to cry.
If nothing else, Tilian Henn would see that Saul was cared for.
9. An Appointment Made
“Deus, it is agreed. They will see you.”
Narak looked up from his contemplation of the sea, the very blue sea of these southern isles, and stared at Narala.
“They? I thought that I had asked to see Sei Mun, the one king of the isles.”
“All will be there,” she said, “They have all caught the interest of your plea, especially Sei Feras Tiar. You ask for war, and that is his domain.”
Narak considered what she said, and it made perfect sense. Sei Feras Tiar, the king of blood and fire, was perhaps the main beneficiary of his message. If he understood the way in which the isles were governed the war king would gain supremacy if his plea was successful. He would become Sei Mun. That was the way the Isles worked; the right monarch for the right time, and the rest nothing but advisors.
“When?”
“In three days. A boat will come and take you across at dawn in three days.”
“You will not come with me?”
Narala looked down. He could see that she was worried. It was almost as though she did not trust him, like a wilful child. “They do not permit women in the Hall of Decision,” she said.
“Narala, do you fear me?”
She was quick to respond, and she smiled. It was a smile that he trusted. “No, Deus, never. Never that.”
“Then tell me what it is that you fear. Why do you fret around me like a mother hen? What do you think I will do?”
“Deus, you are a god. It is not for me to say what you might or might not do.” She avoided replying to the question, but it was a poor evasion. Narak said nothing more, but instead he waited for her to speak again. He knew that if he waited she would have to; the silence would beg it of her. It did not take long. “I do not know, Deus,” she said eventually. “You are angry, and you have just cause, but your anger seems wild, as though it may touch on those who go against your will, even if it may be their right to do so.”
“You fear I will raise my swords against the
Sei?”
“I do, Deus,” she looked down on speaking the words, unwilling to meet his eyes.
“Then be at ease, for I swear that I will not, unless swords are raised against me first. These are men of wisdom, chosen by their countrymen to defend the interests of their realm. If I cannot win them with fair words then I will not draw my blades and wave them under their royal noses. I will not threaten them with anything but the truth.”
Narala nodded. She looked satisfied. “Your word has always been inviolate, Deus. Thank you for your kindness in casting out my unwarranted fears.”
It was very strange, his relationship with Narala. It was the same as it had been between him and Perlaine. He loved them – in a way like his own children which he could not sire – in a way as the beautiful women they were. Yet there was a barrier of respect. He insisted that it was respect, and not fear. Narala was right in that. He could no more harm them than he could have slain his own father. They had done so much for him, been so loyal. Oh, he would scowl at them from time to time, but they were his family, like Caster and Poor and all the others. Sometimes he played the stern patriarch, but it was no more than that, just playing, and he was certain that they knew it. He loved them, and did not doubt it. Nor did he doubt them.