“Can I take my red ball, then?” Orhan heard Dion saying as he left. “Please? In a bag, and I’ll carry the bag the whole time.”
“He’s getting worse since you moved in, you know,” Orhan said to Darath. “You’re a terrible influence. Spoiling him.”
A warm dry wind was blowing through the city. Up from the south. I wonder what’s blowing on that wind? The curtains of the litter flapped close, brushing against Orhan’s legs.
All the high families gathering on the steps of the Great Temple, filing slowly in through the single narrow door. Nods to Darath, nods to Orhan; Orhan and Darath nodded back. Holt Amdelle and his son Symdle, their nods particularly stiff and formal, Symdle’s eyes searching the crowds for his mother Celyse. I will beg Lord Mylt tomorrow to let her go back to them, Orhan thought. One last favour after everything I have done for him; it will go better with Holt if it’s an order from Lord Mylt. Aris Ventuel, The Lord of Empty Mirrors, Dweller in the House of Glass, and his wife, the first of the high families to invite Orhan to a party after his return to favour; he threw the wildest parties in the city, he was at heart the kindest of all the High Lords of Sorlost. He stopped and greeted Orhan and Darath, smiled at them, they talked briefly of nothing, Aris’ last party (“the first time in ten years I’ve had a two-day hangover, thank you, Aris”), Aris’ wife’s new dress. Eloise Verneth, Selim Lochaiel and Elolale, servant girls carrying their infant sons. Furious, raging anger still boiling off Eloise at the sight of Orhan. Orhan thought: look at Bil’s hands, Eloise. You did that. You tried to kill my son when he was a baby: he will be here any moment, with his mother and her maimed hands, how can your hatred of me not turn to shame then, how can your hate not break you, when you see that? Elolale swept past them not looking, Selim nodded to Darath and Orhan but did not speak.
A voice shouted, suddenly, a woman pointing, sunlight flashing on her jewelled sleeve. People turned, staring. More shouts. More pointing hands. “Look! Look!” A godstone had been set up in the Grey Square, in the very shadow of the Temple. As tall as a man, and as broad, a rough column of dark crumbling stone looking rather as though it had been stolen from an abandoned building site. It was leaning over, had not been set up straight.
A child screamed, looking at it. Orhan himself felt a chill. One could almost see a form in it, a woman, wide mother’s hips, a shadow suggesting a face. A pattern carved into it, running lines that might be flowers or simply a mason’s chisel marks. It was near enough to where the bodies of the Temple rioters had once been stacked—where he had once ordered the bodies stacked—that might or might not be coincidence.
Orhan thought: the people who erected it have lost their homes, their families, their lives had been torn to shreds; we can probably allow them some comfort in their misery, some show of thanks for the demon’s defeat. But no, we’ll have it thrown down immediately because either it’s a useless lump of rock or it’s a real genuine god.
Darath beside him muttered, “Blasphemy. I only hope they find whoever did it.”
Another murmur. Eyes swinging from the godstone to the entrance to the Street of Flowers. Equally loud whispers of outrage. Lord Tardein the Lord of the Dry Sea, Dweller in the House of Breaking Waves, the Emperor’s Nithque entered the square in a vast purple litter, carried by ten bearers in purple robes. The litter was almost, almost dark enough purple to be black. Only the Asekemlene Emperor is permitted to use the colour black.
Orhan said, “God’s knives. What possessed him?”
“I’m told…” Darath lowered his voice. “The Immish Great Council gave it to him. He could hardly refuse it.”
Cammor Tardein got out carefully, his hand pressing down on a bodyservant’s arm. Orhan could see the servant wince. Splendidly dressed, a coat of gold brocade, a diamond arm-ring, more diamonds at his throat. But his face had a looseness to it, his cheeks were unshaved. The beautiful clothes seemed to hang off him. His body moved stiffly as he walked through the staring crowds. His clothes did not match each other, Orhan thought watching him. Magnificent but awkward. As though he had put on all his brightest colours, to compensate for the black litter. Cammor went up the steps into the Great Temple, through the narrow doorway and was gone. The rest of the high families began to file in again behind him. There were Bil and Celyse, a servant holding Dion tightly, Dion looking sulky, Bil flushed and cross. There was Symdle staring over at Celyse as he followed his father into the Temple.
Soon, thought Orhan. Soon.
Through the narrow doorway into the darkness. The clawmarks on the door mere scratches: he hardly noticed them, they cannot have been made by the demon, for rejoice the demon is dead. The dark, the long corridor so crowded it had no mystery to it beyond the common fear of being crushed. Pressing forward close beside Darath, breathing in sweat and perfume and flatulence, oppressive, and his foot caught someone’s heel making him stumble and the person in front of him spit out a breath. Through into the Great Chamber, the heat and the light, blinking, screwing up his eyes, the light was brighter, somehow, more blinding, more frightening, for his not having been afraid.
“Orhan?” Darath took his hand.
“Nothing.”
There enthroned before them the child High Priestess in her gown of silver. She sat perfectly still, in the way a grown woman would sit, staring at nothing; she could have been dead and embalmed there. The blankness of her face was unpleasant. Even Darath found it unpleasant, now he spent time with Dion. Everyone seating themselves, adjusting and readjusting glorious clothes not made for sitting squashed in together, the hot smell of them all, the rumbling chatter, high up beneath the ceiling a flock of pethe birds danced. Then the trumpets, the voices calling, “The Emperor! All kneel for the Ever Living Emperor! Avert your eyes and kneel and be thankful! We live and we die! The Emperor comes! The Emperor comes!” The assembled congregation knelt carefully. All but the child in silver who sat stiffly on her throne. The Emperor walked down through the Great Chamber, blank as the High Priestess, a little boy of five years old. He seated himself in his throne, facing the High Priestess. Two little dolls facing each other. The priestesses of the Temple began to sing the hymn to light and living. Dion pointed up at the pethe birds fluttering. Bil reached out her maimed hand to quiet him.
Chapter Thirty
And when this is over, the real work begins.
He had explained it to Darath, and Darath had looked astonished; for a horrible moment he had thought Darath would tell him not to do it.
“You’re insane, Orhan.”
“I’ve dedicated my life to this, Darath. I’m so close. Why else do you think I did all this?”
“Out of compassion for the wider world, I naively thought, what with you being a good man. One apple for two plums, or whatever it was. And that was far away. Just money. This is… not. You made a promise, didn’t you? To Bil?”
“I did make a promise, yes.” But… After everything we’ve suffered, Darath… To be so close… We can’t draw back. We can finish it. Achieve everything I ever hoped for.
As I’ve said before. As I’ll probably say again. And again. And again.
Darath said, “You should have left me in sweet ignorance, Orhan. God’s knives, I almost wish you had. Bilale and I, sitting at home wondering where you’ve gone, ‘That’s strange, Bilale, there seems to be some shouting in the streets, I hope it doesn’t wake Dion up.’ Greeting you afterwards with wondering joy.”
“You can stay at home, yes. I wish you would.”
“When you love someone, Orhan, you stay with them. I’ll never leave you again. I swear.” Darath kissed him. “Thank you for telling me, Orhan.”
The early morning sunlight made pools on the bedroom floor like spilled water. A great glorious burst of birdsong. Darath yawned, “Why must things begin so early in the morning? Why not a civilized hour of the afternoon?”
“The last ‘thing’ we did began at dusk. Look how that turned out.”
“What thing was that?”
>
“Umm…?”
“Oh, when we attempted to assassinate the Emperor? That thing?”
“That thing.”
Darath pulled a shirt over his head. “Uncivilized hours for uncivilized work.”
The jasmine was in bloom in the morning room. A servant girl brought fresh figs and dried apricots, bread, honey, cold meat. The best gold plates. If it was early for Lord Emmereth and Lord Vorley to be awake, she was careful not to look surprised at it. Dion was already awake, naturally, shouting from the gardens behind the jasmine. Bil came in to join them. Her white face was flushed with nerves.
“Have a fig?” Darath asked her innocently, holding out the plate.
“How can you eat? I feel too nervous to eat.” She gestured to her servant girl to serve her fruit and some bread, pour her a cup of soured milk.
“Did you sleep at all?” Orhan asked her.
She shook her head. “Not well. Dion didn’t sleep well, either. Cried out, wouldn’t lie down unless I came in to him. It’s almost as though he knows.”
“He knows something’s happening,” said Orhan. “Picks it up.”
“Are you ready?” Bil asked him.
Darath said, “No.”
They ate, and washed, and went upstairs to arm themselves. It was easier strapping armour on than it had been. Curiously. Orhan’s hands didn’t shake this time, as he remembered they had the night they did that thing. In his memory his hands had trembled so you’d wonder how he’d ever managed to get everything on. It should be worse, not easier, knowing everything they were about to do, already hearing it and smelling it in his mind.
“Your shirt’s crumpled,” said Darath.
“It hardly matters, does it?”
“Yes.”
Actually, yes, it probably does. The look of the thing. We are civilized men, we who do this.
He felt so much more… so much more self-belief, this time.
At the door Bil waited to see them off. Janush the bondsman stood beside her, gave them each a cup of wine, a mouthful of salt and honey on a white dish.
“Bit early in the day, isn’t it?” Darath said. They made an attempt to laugh. Great Tanis, Lord of Living and Dying, we stand away from you now in the place between light and darkness, between life and death. Protect us, Lord Tanis, hear our prayers and give us life or death according to our due.
“Where’s Dion?” said Orhan.
“I had him sent to his bedroom. I didn’t want you to frighten him, dressed like that.”
“That was wise,” said Darath. Still trying for levity as he always did. “Orhan would terrify me, dressed like that, too, if I hadn’t been the one who helped dress him. As it is, I’m insulted, Bilale. I smoothed the crinkles out of his shirt and everything specifically to stop him frightening little boys.”
“You should go,” said Bil. She kissed Darath’s cheek, then Orhan’s. Dry lips. Rasp of scar tissue against Orhan’s skin. Smell of dried apricots on her breath. “Good luck. I shall pray to Great Tanis.”
“Better to stay at home and lock the doors,” said Orhan.
“Did you send word to Celyse?”
“Of course.”
Darath said, “If she hasn’t locked and barred the doors of my house, I’ll never forgive her. I told her to push tables up against the windows. Have buckets of water standing by just in case.”
We can be so flippant about this now, Orhan thought. Is it because it’s more real than it was the first time? Or because it’s less real?
Just the two of them. Different from last time there also. Easier. Simpler. Worse. No ranks of puzzled followers, the guilt of their deaths already pressing down. Darath and Orhan, two grim uncomfortable middle-aged men. Unlike last time nobody looked at them, walking the streets like this, armed, afraid. In Sorlost once real men did not need to go about in armour, flaunted themselves without fear in fine silks and brocades.
There are so many things the people of Sorlost can be accused of. But that should be to their credit. Always.
Selim Lochaiel, Lord of the Moon’s Light, met them at the palace gates. The gates opened. There was Cauvanh, with a contingent of Immish soldiers at his back. Chief Secretary Gallus was there also. More frightened even than Bil. Darath gave him a dark look. Never forgiven the poor man for being Orhan’s type.
Here we are again. Let’s see if this time we can have any better luck.
Cauvanh licked his lips nervously. “I was uncertain you would do this,” he said. “I was half expecting you to turn back.”
Darath said, “It would have been the better course not to, yes.”
The Immish guards were edgy. Do they know? thought Orhan. They went quickly through the palace; Orhan found himself walking next to Gallus, noticed the smell of drink on Gallus’s breath.
“Gallus?” Looked weary, his eyes pouched, the lovely golden curls in his hair had turned grey. Gallus shook his head. The highest official in the Imperial Palace of the Asekemlene Emperor of the Sekemleth Empire of Sorlost, dancing at the feet of the Immish, who were the allies of the demon the King of Death, who had just died betrayed by a friend who was paid by the Empire’s High Lords at the behest of one faction of the Immish. Yes, Orhan thought, I suppose it would drive one to start the day with a cup of something. The cost of intoxicants had gone up noticeably in the last few months, come to that.
“He’s in the Pearl Chamber,” said Gallus.
“Alone?”
“There’s a man with him, talking about the work on the road to Reneneth. He arrived very suddenly, there’s been some problem with the work, I tried to put him off.” Gallus ran his hands through his thinning hair, scratched at his eyes. “I’m sorry, My Lords.”
“And guards?”
“Three or four.”
“They will not be a problem,” said Cauvanh.
No. I’m sure they won’t. “Where’s the Emperor?” said Orhan suddenly.
Gallus paused. Confused. “I think… in the gardens.”
“Don’t worry, Orhan,” said Darath.
Then all of it again, going through the palace, servants pulling back out of their way. The swagger of men walking with swords and in armour, trying to feel like great heroes, feeling self-conscious trying too hard to be swaggering with a sword. What fools we feel. Walking beside Darath, sweet nostalgia, back where it all began, my love, my love, you still here beside me. Cauvanh threw the door wide, they walked into the Pearl Chamber as though walking into a room of water, rainbows shimmering on the walls and the floor.
Lord Mylt was indeed talking to someone, the two of them deep in discussion over a map. They both started around. Lord Mylt’s mouth fell open. “Cauvanh?” Angry, and alarmed: “Guards!”
“Kill him,” Cauvanh said to the guards.
A moment, just a moment, when the guards hesitated.
They killed the man Lord Mylt had been talking with as well. The only possible thing to do, but one had to feel some pity for the poor chap. Come to see Lord Mylt about a problem with a construction project, end up dead on the floor. What was that about one life for the greater good of many, Orhan? One apple for two plums? Every time, every single time, you say it’s just one life for the greater good, just one or two innocents for the greater good.
Which it always is. That’s the worst thing. One life in exchange for twenty, thirty, a hundred—is there anyone, anywhere, apart from the man who’s dying, who’d say that the cost isn’t worth it? A hundred people will die because you were too squeamish to kill one innocent? I think I know what those hundred and all who love them might say. Two people will die, even, if we don’t kill one innocent—are not two lives more precious than one?
“I don’t know. I don’t bloody know. How should I know?” That’s the only human thing anyone can say.
It was quick, at least. Two sword thrusts, blood on metal, blood on bright silk cloth, done. The road builder had fallen face down but Lord Mylt lay on his back with his chin jutting up in an expression of astonish
ment. No time to feel fear, one could only hope.
“Thank you,” Cauvanh said neatly to the guards. The one who’d killed Lord Mylt nodded. Gallus rubbed his face, his whole body slumping. Selim Lochaiel choked, clamped his hands over his mouth.
“A little girl will stab a man in the heart this evening,” said Darath, “so that your children will grow and live. Take your hands away from your mouth, Selim.” He rolled his eyes at Selim. “Oh, God’s knives, yes, it’s horrible, one day you shall be as he is, blood smells vile, far worse than it does when it’s on a plate as your dinner, it’s a profound mystery the change from living man to slowly rotting corpse, you and Orhan can have a long philosophical discussion about guilt and eternity later once we’re done. Here.” Passed Selim a silk handkerchief. Selim held it to his mouth, gulped, choked, managed not to be sick.
“Thank you.”
“God’s knives, I don’t want it back. Keep it. Burn it. Dump it with them.”
Cauvanh was already making a search of Lord Mylt’s robes. “A coin pouch—eight talents, five dhol. A letter… from his mistress. A letter… from his wife.” He crumpled the letters, dropped them. Flicked through the papers on the table. “The poor innocent road builder here seems to have been embezzling half the cost of the road building.” Read a particular paper in more detail. “Oh, and splitting the profits with Lord Mylt. The road should be built more quickly also now, which is an unlooked-for bonus outcome.” Gestured to the guard who had killed Lord Mylt, his sword blade now clean again. “Get these… things out of here.”
A proclamation was issued on the steps of the Great Temple at midday:
“A new time of peace is upon us, the city is saved from the demon, Lord Mylt praised be his name is to leave the city, return to a life of peace on his estates as befits a man who had worked so hard and with such dedication to the glory of Immish and the Sekemleth Empire; Lord Cauvanh will take his place on the Great Council as the Immish representative in Sorlost. Lord Cammor Tardein the Lord of the Dry Sea the Dweller in the House of Breaking Waves the Emperor’s Nithque is retiring from his post also, having guided the city back to security and peace; Lord Darath Vorley Lord of All That Flowers and Fades the Dweller in the House of Flowers is appointed Nithque to the Emperor in Lord Tardein’s place. A new age of peace will be upon the Sekemleth Empire, let us hope and pray. Two thirds of the Immish troops will be leaving Sorlost in three days’ time: this should not be taken to mean that Immish is withdrawing its aid to the people of Sorlost or its friendship with the Emperor, indeed, the bonds that tie Immish in loyalty to the glorious Sekemleth Empire, so firmly forged, so precious, will not, cannot, be broken, cherished as they are by the glorious Asekemlene Emperor, the Ever Living, the Eternal, so fond in the hearts of every man, woman and child in Immish, even from Telea in the west to Immerlas on the far-off shores of the Bitter Sea, cherished as they are by the Immish Great Council, the wise and just rulers of that fair country; no, the withdrawal of these troops means only a restoration of balance in the honour and care that Immish feel for the people of Sorlost their allies. The demon is dead and his army destroyed: it is time for a new age of peace, for men such as Lord Vorley, who has suffered much grief, who can share the longing of the people for quiet times, not for soldiers.”
The House of Sacrifice Page 25