SHIANG

by C. F. Iggulden

  ‘Sir! Please!’

  The man was scandalised. Tellius was tempted to remind him he had been bawling the price of fish just a year before, but that would have been cruel. There were no airs like the ones in those recently raised, he thought. He supposed he might consider himself in the same rare group. The thought was somewhat uncomfortable and his collar seemed to chafe suddenly, so that he ran a finger around the inside of it.

  ‘I have spoken to Lady Forza before, Morbon. I believe I left strict instructions not to be disturbed by her again. My life has too few years left to waste another hour of it on Lady Forza’s tea leaves and fortunes.’

  ‘She brought her stone with her this time, sir,’ Morbon said.

  Tellius bit the inside of his lip as he thought. He could not deny he was interested to see the thing. As the great treasure of her house, Lady Forza had never allowed it out before.

  ‘Lady Sallet said to insist, did she?’

  ‘Very clearly, sir. She said I was not to allow you to escape.’

  ‘I hear her tone there, Morbon.’

  ‘That is very likely, sir.’

  ‘Damn it,’ Tellius said. ‘Very well. Lead me to another wasted afternoon. Could I at least prevail upon you to call me away to an urgent meeting after a little while? That has worked before.’

  Morbon still streamed with sweat. He dabbed a handkerchief over his face, using it to wipe the pink folds. His eyes showed a flash of malice as he replied.

  ‘Of course, sir. I am at your service.’

  Tellius glanced at him and grinned suddenly.

  ‘Good for you, Morbon. You won’t be coming to fetch me, will you? There’ll be no urgent call.’

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ Morbon admitted. He smiled as he spoke and tucked his handkerchief into the pocket of his waistcoat. Tellius chuckled as he turned back.

  Lord Ran walked almost in a trance through the streets of Shiang. Try as he might, he could not understand what had gone wrong, nor how he had come to be leading the four men he had embroiled in his experiments to the king’s palace. Whenever he paused or demurred, he felt himself prodded in the back by the one who called himself Gabriel, whom Lord Ran had known as Taeshin, one of Lord Hong’s swordsmen. They wore no swords, in a city where swordsmen were treated with elaborate politeness and caution. Insults were not forgiven in such a place, whether a man was armed or unarmed. Lord Ran staggered on, wondering if he was a prisoner. His mind still reeled. The experiment had succeeded in some sense. The entire power of the stone had been drawn out, but still, three of the men had been healed. The last pitiful creature staggered in their wake. Gabriel had tied a piece of rope to the fellow’s neck and drew him along with them like a pet. Lord Ran saw no light of understanding in the eyes. He had looked back only once and shuddered at the man’s slack expression.

  The streets were busy at that time of the morning, with half the city heading to work or already bawling their wares and prices to passers-by. For a time, it seemed the way would constantly clear before them. There was something not quite right in the small group that strode so purposefully along the western avenue, something that jarred against the normal rhythms of the city and its commerce. For those with eyes to see, it was enough of a warning to take a step back and watch with silent scrutiny until whatever it was had passed. A man did not live long with a tendency to ignore his surroundings, at least in Shiang. There were just too many willing to take offence – and too many swordsmen capable of enforcing instant reprisal. On a normal day, the politeness of strangers could be an art form as elaborate as a royal ceremony.

  Lord Ran came to a halt when a group of Mazer warriors remained in the centre of the road. Six young house guards cast glances at those bearing down on them, but they saw no threat in the small group. Even the man on a leash was not too unusual in the city, where slaves could be punished in a multitude of ways.

  A young woman was coming down the last steps from rooms far above. Lord Ran assumed she was the mistress of some noble son, flaunting his men and his power in the street for her neighbours. The six men had brought a litter to that place and even laid a path to it. She blushed under their attention as she walked across clean rushes.

  Gabriel stepped forward to see why they had stopped. He saw Lord Ran cringe and ignored him, surveying the scene and particularly the woman with open appreciation.

  She felt his gaze and faltered. It was not common for a man to look so openly, especially with swordsmen in attendance. Lord Ran saw her mouth purse in irritation as Gabriel looked on, a slight smile on his face.

  One of the six swordsmen glanced at whatever had caught her attention. The young warrior frowned and nudged the one next to him, exchanging low words. Lord Ran groaned.

  ‘Gabriel?’ he said out of the side of his mouth. ‘These men will kill us all if they are not shown more respect. Please avert your eyes from the young lady.’

  ‘No, I don’t think I will,’ Gabriel said.

  The beauty on the rushes had ensnared him, though he did not know if she was truly a vision, or whether it was part of his reaction to being alive once more. He could feel a fleck of black mud on his cheek with a shiver of excitement, so he suspected he was still unbalanced. He had been too long in the grey land, perhaps. They said the best sauce for any food was hunger. Perhaps all women were queens to one who had once been dead.

  He felt his cheeks flush and experienced a physical reaction that might have embarrassed him in a previous life. Another of the swordsmen had seen the way a stranger stared. That fellow bristled and cried out in anger, calling some command across the heads of the others. Gabriel dragged his gaze at last from the young woman and fastened it on the one who stepped forward in challenge. The house swordsman wore fine panelled armour and had a slightly curved scabbard on his left hip. Gabriel smiled. He had held such a blade just the morning before, though it had not come with him. His hand remembered too many years of war and his fingers twitched to feel the weight of rippled steel again.

  He waited a beat then, but it was already too late. Under that infuriating smile, the swordsman came rushing at him, drawing his sword in a motion Gabriel recalled as well as his own breath. He moved aside from the first blow, so fast that he was able to watch the man’s eyes widen. Gabriel laughed. He had never been as quick before. He did not know if it was centuries of fighting every day or the stone that had drawn him back, but even a house swordsman seemed slow to him. He touched the man’s outstretched arm as he swept past, not to hurt him, but lifting it a little to prevent the tip of the sword touching the ground. It was a lovely weapon and Gabriel did not want to see it damaged.

  The man recovered, though he was off-balance. Dropping low, he brought the blade back in a short, chopping motion. Gabriel hit him on the side of the head and he crumpled instantly, knocked dead or unconscious. The sword fell from nerveless fingers and Gabriel snatched it up, swishing it through the air with delight. Every breath he pulled in was different! He felt the giddiness of it, as if he were drunk on air alone. He had been blind and deaf and mute before, his senses dulled in the grey place. Here, he was more alive than he had ever been.

  The other warriors watched in disbelief as their officer was taken out with a single blow. They attacked as they had been trained to do, to remove the stain of dishonour and to bring instant justice. Gabriel moved amongst them, stepping in much closer than most men wished to be, so that it was almost a dance of lovers, though drops of blood spattered the air. He laughed with each blow, steeped in dark delight.

  In just moments, the street was quiet and the last of them fell onto the stones to bleed. Gabriel wiped two fingers down the blade and knelt to untie the first man’s scabbard. The young woman began to scream until he glanced up at her. He held her gaze then and she was still.

  ‘Come, my dear,’ he said. ‘I am going to the palace. Would you like to meet the king?’

  He reached out and, in a daze, she took his hand. Gabriel smiled at her.

  ‘Ah, “She walks
in beauty like the night”. To know such a thing again …’

  He turned back to the small group he led. The one called Thomas was watching him with a certain tension. At his side, the half-foot soldier had already bled through the bandages that wrapped him. It was as if he wore a boot of blood and he looked as pale as death and about as resentful. The man on the leash stared and breathed and seemed unaware of anything. Of the three who had returned, he was by far the most restful companion. Gabriel shook his head, raising his eyebrows to Lord Ran.

  ‘These were truly the best you could find?’ he said.

  ‘I was not allowed to choose healthy men,’ Lord Ran said. ‘Nor even these. You should all have been dead.’ He said the last as a mutter, but Gabriel heard.

  ‘I have been,’ Gabriel said. ‘I do not recommend it.’

  Lord Ran blinked. He had been stunned and disorientated from dawn. He could not recall being so terrified of anything before, but there was something about the one who called himself Gabriel that inspired a constant and exhausting fear. It was as if Lord Ran’s life rested on a coin toss in each heartbeat, so that it could be snatched away at any moment. He wondered how long he would survive.

  As Gabriel turned to the palace quarter ahead of them, Lord Ran touched the knife that was hidden in his belt. Part of the buckle, it was a coward’s weapon, but he might bring an end to the horror of that day if he could cut Gabriel’s throat. He could not escape the sick sense that even that might not be enough.

  He saw the man who had been Taeshin turn back to him. It was as if the sun returned.

  ‘You look nervous, Lord Ran. There is no need to be. You understand the stone and the wires – everything I need to do it all again. Believe me, you are safer than anyone else in Shiang at this moment. Perhaps I will make you king.’

  ‘I … my lord … there was only one s-stone. I have no other!’

  As he spoke Lord Ran cursed himself for being a fool. The madman was telling him he had value and there he was, throwing away the thing that made him useful!

  Gabriel raised his head further and drew in a breath, as if he sniffed the breeze.

  ‘No, it was not the only one, brother. Power calls to power. There are other stones in the world. Stones I can use. Now, strip these men of their armour, my lord. Take two more swords and present them to Thomas and … you. What is your name?’

  The man whose foot was only half formed growled his response.

  ‘Sanjin. If you would finish healing my foot, I would be more use to you.’

  ‘That is your test, Sanjin,’ Gabriel said. ‘I have shown you it can be done. So finish my work. Show me you are worthy to follow me, or bleed to death.’

  Lord Ran hesitated only a moment. If he was as valuable as Gabriel said he was, he could not be killed for refusing to strip the dead. Yet before he could say as much, Gabriel pushed him forward, so roughly he fell onto his hands and knees in the slop of the road.

  ‘I gave you an order, my lord. I have restored a blind man before. Would you have me take your eyes? Your tongue? I suggest you obey me.’

  Lord Ran choked down his fear and began tugging at the panels of armour, passing them back to the men he had brought into the world. The nobleman was filthy with blood and mud by the end, his face smeared with all sorts of foul muck where he had wiped sweat.

  Gabriel, Thomas and Sanjin eyed one another in the armour. They had not bothered finding a weapon or a coat for the fourth, who hissed softly as he breathed and understood nothing.

  ‘It feels right, brothers, does it not?’ Gabriel said. ‘To stand here?’

  The young woman began to sob and he turned to her, so fast it made her flinch in her tears.

  ‘Do not cry, my dear. Tonight, you will share the bed of an angel, perhaps of a king – or a god. Does that not please you?’

  She shook her head and the sobbing only intensified. Gabriel scratched the underside of his chin and made an exasperated sound. Yet the day was too perfect to be angry for long. He smiled at the faces watching them from every window that looked down on the street.

  ‘I tell you, Lord Ran, there will be others weeping before I am done. It is good to be home.’

  He took the young woman by the hand and at first she tried to pull away from him.

  ‘Do you see this man who wears a rope on his neck?’ he said. ‘Would you have me lead you in the same way?’

  She shook her head, her eyes huge in her despair.

  ‘Then walk at my side, my dear. Take my hand in yours and walk like a queen. Who knows, if you please me, you might become one.’

  The presence of armed strangers approaching the royal precinct did not go unnoticed. Gabriel and Lord Ran passed the line of dark stone that marked the royal grounds and were immediately challenged by the guards of a royal tax office. Those four men had stood to perfect attention like mannequins for the first hours of the morning. They moved a little stiffly to halt the progress of strangers who had no right to be strolling onto Crown property.

  The outermost buildings were of a previous age, with great columns thicker than a man in white stone and doors apparently designed for cavalry to ride through without ducking their heads. If the swordsmen who guarded collectors of taxes and royal archivists tended to be a little past their prime, they were experienced men nonetheless. They stepped into the street, fanning out across a pinch point that had been designed with exactly that purpose in mind.

  The sight of a young woman marked by tears did not assuage the tension that showed in their stances. Nor did the hissing man held with a rope around his neck. The four guards exchanged glances, with the most senior raising his flat hand. He was not worried by what he saw, though it interrupted an otherwise peaceful morning.

  Gabriel drew in a breath, but it was the one called Thomas who spoke first. The man who had been blind stepped ahead of the little group. His hazel eyes were strangely piercing and he smiled as he kept moving. He pressed his chest against the outstretched palm held up to stop him, leaning onto it as if testing the man’s strength.

  The guard captain frowned at the bravado. He had served the royal family with distinction for some thirty years, before accepting a lesser post to take him quietly to retirement. He opened his mouth to speak sternly to them and then recognised Lord Ran. His manner changed immediately.

  ‘My lord, I did not see you. Please accept my apologies. May I assist?’

  ‘Lord Ran needs an escort into the palace,’ Gabriel said smoothly. ‘He has an urgent matter to discuss with the king.’

  The guard’s eyes flickered across to the speaker and his eyes widened.

  ‘Taeshin? I thought you had fallen ill …’ His confusion cleared as he recalled Lord Hong’s man had been taken to the Lord of Trade to be healed. It appeared to have been a success. ‘I am glad to see you have recovered.’

  The guard jerked his head to the other three and they took their hands from their sword hilts and returned to their posts at the tax house columns without another word. Gabriel looked slightly disappointed.

  ‘I will take you to the king’s seneschal, Lord Ran,’ the captain continued. ‘I cannot say when His Majesty will see you, of course.’

  ‘I don’t …’ Lord Ran began. Gabriel spoke over him.

  ‘Lord Ran must see the king now. Run ahead and announce us. No business of the court is more important than this.’

  The guard frowned once more. He could not understand why Taeshin was giving such orders, especially to one of his seniority. Yet he had obeyed that tone for thirty years and so he bowed low and clattered away. The small group followed at a more sedate pace.

  ‘My lord Ran,’ Gabriel said softly. ‘If you call out in warning, I will not kill you, I swear it. But I will visit suffering upon you. Until you are broken. Do you understand me?’

  Lord Ran nodded, miserably. He rubbed his nose with one hand, finding that it smeared his hand in blood. A nosebleed. He was lost, a confused and battered old man. A gentle rain began above them, mak
ing the air into damp mists as it struck and leaped from the cobbled ground.

  8

  Forza

  Tellius entered a chamber that had a ceiling thirty feet above his head. Half the rooms of the Sallet estate were hung with ropes of plaster as decoration. In the greeting hall, they formed great ribbons and loops on the walls, painted gold over a sage green. Tellius had discovered green was very common in Sallet holdings. Frankly, it had begun to wear on him. He knew the colours were meant to both soothe anger and remind guests of the noble stone that had raised the Sallets to one of the foremost families in the city of Darien. To his eye, it had an acid look. For all he knew, that was intended. Green could be spring, fresh salads and grassy meadows. Or it could be bile, and mould, and bitter as gall.

  Tellius felt his heart sink at the sight of the old lady waiting for him. Though she must have been eighty, Lady Forza had the manner of a bird, with quick movements and sharp eyes. He smiled even so and dropped to one knee as she turned her head.

  Her expression was so relieved, Tellius felt a stab of guilt for having led Morbon such a dance to avoid being called, though he quickly hardened his heart. He’d endured two previous meetings with no clear purpose. He knew Win wanted him to take an interest in the business of House Sallet. It boded rather well for their relationship that she wished to demonstrate her trust in him, especially in public. He believed too that she told the truth when she said she valued his particular judgement – how could she not? He had led an interesting life. There were times when he felt a little like the fox let loose among the chickens for a day.

  The noble houses tended to employ hard men to be suspicious on their behalf. Perhaps the original families had been men and women of iron. Yet behind the walls of their estates, some of their descendants were as innocent as babes. A less moral man might have taken terrible advantage, Tellius thought with a sigh. Sadly, those days were behind him. Only a fool would foul his own nest, no matter which shade of green it was.

  As he bowed deeply and braced himself to be kissed on both cheeks, Tellius could not help glance at the box that rested on a table of onyx and iron at Lady Forza’s side. He knew that box had not been present in the room on any of his previous visits. It was a dark blood red for a start, as out of place in that room as he sometimes felt himself.