by David Hair
Fernando had been laid in a stone sarcophagus, his name etched hastily on the top. She placed her torch in a holder on the wall to free her hands and lifted the lid, wincing at the stench of death within. She paused to wrap a scarf over her nose and mouth, took a deep breath and prised open the coffin.
No effort had been made to prepare the body for burial. The corpse of Fernando Tolidi was in advanced decay, horribly swollen to twice its normal bulk by the gases trapped as the internal organs decayed. The fingernails, toenails and hair had continued to grow, but the face had fallen, the rotting flesh clinging to the shape of the skull beneath. His eyes were open, bulging white orbs staring sightlessly upward. His swollen tongue had forced the mouth apart and lines of dried blood ran from his eyes and mouth as if he had been weeping ichor. But all this was normal decomposition.
It’s no wonder there were legends of the living dead well before the gnosis made it possible, Elena thought. She quelled her nausea; what she was about to do was difficult and more than a little dangerous. She was going to use Fernando’s body as a link to his soul – a Necromantic summoning to bring the spirit back to its corpse. There was every chance it would be futile – Necromancy was not her forte, and his spirit might have already dissipated or passed on. Or worse, she might attract the attention of something more dangerous.
Purple light, the colour of Necromancy, oozed from her fingers onto Fernando’s gelid skin. There was nothing left of him here but a cadaver, but a residue of his essence remained for a time in the body. Using it, she began her call, soundless in the human world, but felt like a pulse by the spirits, like vibrations on a web, attracting the spiders. She tried not to think of it that way, though.
Fernando Tolidi … Fernando Tolidi …
She lost track of time while she called, feeling only the sheen on her brow, the beads of sweat, the light touches on her mind, until at last she felt stirrings, as if something large had swum near her in deep waters, a thing of shadow and distant hissing voices, and then …
I … am … was … Fernando … Tolidi …
She caught an image, a self-image of a well-made young man with an equine face. His semi-opaque form drifted towards her, a look of fear on his face. He reached the other side of the coffin.
Don’t look down, Fernando, look at me, she told him, but he looked down anyway, saw his own rotting body and cried out in sorrow and horror. His spectral form began to disintegrate.
She walked around the coffin as he backed away. Fernando, look only at me, she commanded.
His face turned back towards her, unwilling, terrified. What have you done to me?
I need to know who killed you.
He looked at her in confusion, his eyes haunted. He clutched at his breast, as if touching an embedded blade. I can’t remember – why can’t I remember my own death?
Elena sought to soothe him. It’s normal. The mind erases pain and trauma. She felt a sudden prickling of her senses as other spirits crowded about them now, watching intently. She needed to get this over with. Be still, she told Fernando’s ghost, and she held out a hand, aglow with purple gnosis, and reached inside his spectral skull. A shudder ran through him and images flicked into her mind:
A young woman, Solinde, naked on top of him, his hands gripping her as she rode him, his pleasure mounting, ascending towards release … He looks up at her as she looks down …
It’s not her!
Shock, disbelief; he’s shouting, inchoate words of denial and horror, shoving her off him … a thin, white body sprawls, and then that face is shouting back at him and a dagger flashes …
There’s numbness as blow after blow hammers into his chest, and it’s so strange because he can’t feel a thing and yet there is blood everywhere. He can still see a bony face, blood all over the white skin, the acrid tang of blood. Darkness is rushing in like water, pulling him under …
Elena disengaged from the vision as it faded. ‘Thank you, Fernando,’ she said, aloud and into the spirit world. ‘Go in peace.’
The big face looked down at her and he tried to reach for her, whether in threat or gratitude she couldn’t tell, because some unseen wind shredded him and blew his soul into the void.
Elena held onto that indistinct image: a thin, boyish face with short red hair. No one she knew …
The mausoleum felt watchful now, sentient. Summoning one spirit invariably attracted others. She backed out, waving the torch about her, knowing her fears were not groundless: she knew of beings that could be lurking, and she whispered words of banishing. The echoing silence mocked her, but though there was nothing else here, she did not feel safe until she had regained her rooms.
She lay wakeful long into the night, wishing she could talk to someone – all right, with Lorenzo – but it was late, and she had too much to think about.
When eventually she slept, she dreamed the bloated body under the slab was her own.
‘Lady Elena, how are you faring?’ Pita Rosco sat himself beside her as the rest of the Regency Council filed in. The group was somewhat changed these days, with Seir Luigi Conti gone north, where he was penning in the Gorgio. Comte Piero Inveglio was still there, urbane, suave as ever, and still peddling his sons to Cera at every opportunity. It had become a good-natured joke, though with a serious undertone. Don Francesco Perdonello sat with the council now, the prime bureaucrat of the Grey Crows, to advise on Civil Service matters. He always brought a retinue of experts, and had become a major player. He and Pita Rosco were at constant loggerheads over finances.
‘Pita, I’ve never been better,’ Elena lied brightly.
Pita raised a dubious eyebrow, but didn’t challenge her words. Lorenzo came in and Elena found something important to do in the corner while the young knight joked with Pita about a wager.
Cera led in the remainder of the council: Luigi Ginovisi, still Master of Revenues, and still grumbling. Godspeaker Acmed al-Istan, trying to persuade the council to make positive steps towards the Amteh demands. The Sollan Faith was now represented by Josip Yannos, more senior than Ivan Prato. Yannos was a stern, grey presence who would argue the smallest point as if it were life and death. The Regency Council was thirty-strong now, and each councillor had his own retinue. It was too big, Elena kept telling Cera. She was working on getting Cera to adopt a smaller Upper Council instead; one more boring, divisive meeting should persuade her.
Cera sat, and everyone took their places. Elena slid into her customary position beside her, but the queen-regent didn’t even spare her a glance as she opened the meeting. ‘All of our time is precious, gentlemen, and I am sick of fixing gate tolls and salt quotas, then finding we’re out of time to debate the shihad. This is a decision, not an invitation to argue. Understood?’
They all knew her well enough by now to just bow and agree. Elena had heard a few of them hankering back to the old days, ‘when Olfuss at least let us talk’. But she had also heard them agree that Cera ran the council well, and by and large they were fiercely loyal to her. She felt a familiar surge of pride in her princessa. All those nights tutoring her on politics and leadership were bearing fruit, far beyond what she could ever have envisaged.
Though I miss the girl she used to be …
Cera recapped their position: their agents in Kesh reported massive columns of men winding their way west towards the Hebb Valley. A trader reported that Tomas Betillon had instituted a brutally enforced curfew in Hebusalim. The Rondians had sent Belonius Vult on some kind of diplomatic mission to the Ordo Costruo. In the north the Gorgio were quiescent, but they were building tall wooden gantries, the type used to dock windships. The Dorobon were coming, it was rumoured. Even if Javon ignored the Crusade, war would still come. But this was all days or weeks old; without Gurvon Gyle’s web of informants fresh news was precious.
They debated the shihad extensively, but no one could agree on anything. Sending their soldiers south if the Gorgio were about to be reinforced by the Dorobon would be madness – but rebuffing Sultan Sa
lim’s demands would also be suicidal. In the end they voted narrowly in favour of the shihad, and only on Cera’s casting vote. Lorenzo had voted against, Elena noted, which had not pleased Cera.
It was a long meeting, and even the most argumentative councillor was ready to leave when Cera announced one last matter. ‘Elena has asked me to bring Solinde back from Krak di Conditiori,’ she said baldly.
This made everyone stop their end-of-meeting banter and stare. ‘For what purpose?’ Comte Inveglio asked at last. ‘She still faces charges of treason and has not yet been tried. Can we risk a public trial at so delicate a time?’
Pita Rosco raised a finger. ‘We should make an example of her – it will show the people that we are determined to confront this matter head-on—’
Cera raised a hand. ‘Elena wishes only to question her concerning events surrounding the death of Fernando Tolidi. The transfer will be low-key. Whether she is sent south again will depend on the answers we get.’
‘Then why does Donna Elena not go south herself and save us the trouble of a difficult and dangerous prisoner-transfer?’ Pita grumbled.
‘Because I cannot spare her,’ Cera responded flatly. ‘This is for your information; it is not a debate.’ Then she softened a little. ‘Solinde is still my sister, and I too want to see her again. I want to know whether she put the Gorgio ahead of us. If she did, I will have no pity.’ Cera’s voice had a hollow, haunted tone. ‘But that is for another time.’ She stood abruptly. ‘That is all, gentlemen.’
As the men dispersed, Cera plucked at Elena’s sleeve and bade her walk with her, a rarity of late. ‘Elena, part of me would be happy for Solinde to stay in the dungeons of the Krak for ever,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not sure how to deal with her any more.’
Elena said sympathetically, ‘I will question her as quickly as I can, then we will send her back. You don’t even have to see her.’
‘But I do, Ella – of course I have to see her.’ Cera straightened her back, her mind already moving on. ‘Next week the sultan’s emissaries are arriving. What do we tell them?’
‘That we’d love to dance, but we’ve got a full card?’
Cera suppressed a smile. ‘That might be about all we can say. I doubt Salim will be amused, though. Nor the Jhafi. If the Dorobon return, I can’t afford to have my armies in the Hebb Valley.’ She yawned bleakly. ‘Lorenzo di Kestria voted against us supporting the shihad,’ she noted. ‘I was surprised.’
‘I think Lorenzo believes we can only deal with one problem at a time. He believes the Gorgio–Dorobon alliance is the issue we must confront.’
Cera scowled. ‘Usually the Kestrians vote with me,’ she growled. She glanced at Elena. ‘I thought you had him better trained than that.’
‘If that was a jest, it wasn’t funny, Cera.’ She thinks I’m sleeping with him. Who else does?
Cera said coldly, ‘I merely meant that you and he usually agree on most matters. There was no need to take offence.’
Elena flinched. ‘I apologise, your Majesty. I’m tired.’ Deathly tired. Tired enough to make mistakes. She bowed, conscious that the exchange had been overheard by several of the council. ‘Please excuse me.’ She hurried away, thinking, What’s got into my princessa? Where’s the girl I used to know?
She climbed the stairs wearily, considered another bath, but chose meditation instead. She went to her tower-room and bowed apologetically to Bastido, whom she’d been neglecting of late, before casting off her cloak and weapons. She pulled open the shutters and bathed in the crimson light of the falling sun for a while before pulling off her breeches and outer tunic, unrolling the thin mat she kept in the corner and beginning her routine. The art of yoga had come originally from Lakh, but after the Leviathan Bridge had opened it had been learned by many magi of Yuros, deemed useful as both physical and mental training.
She had been working for half an hour and was beginning to sweat when the sound of her door opening pulled her mind back to the present. Her eyes went to her sword. She relaxed slightly when she saw that the intruder was Lorenzo di Kestria, though her skin prickled at being alone with him.
‘Donna Ella, may I interrupt?’
She looked down at herself, clad only in perspiration-soaked undergarments, then up at him. ‘Lori, if you walked in on another woman like this she would have every right to scream.’
He glided past her to the window. ‘I know, I’m sorry. I presume upon your goodwill.’ He turned, his face gilded by the sunset, and extended a hand. ‘We said we would talk again after you had returned from the blood-tower. You have returned, and I wish to have that conversation.’
Oh my …
She allowed him to draw her up. Her knees had lost all strength, and all of the wet heat in her body began to flow to her belly. And below. ‘I should dress,’ she muttered distractedly.
He prevented her by simply enclosing his arms about her from behind. They were firm and warm; they felt as strong as castle walls. She sank into his grasp almost involuntarily.
‘I enjoy watching you. You move with such grace,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Like water.’ He gently turned her so that they faced out the window. ‘Here in these dry lands, water is precious.’
Together they stared out over the sea of mud-brick houses to the desert horizon and the stark shapes of the mountains to the west. She tried to remember what forests looked like, and couldn’t. She couldn’t rightly think of anything, except how good his arms felt wrapped about her.
‘Tell me of Indrania,’ she said hastily, trying to give herself time to think.
He smiled fondly. ‘Ah. The people there say Lakh, not Indrania. It’s the strangest land in the world, perhaps. The red dirt, the dusty green of the trees, the minarets rising white above the red roofs. The vibrancy of the people and the colour. You have never seen colour until you have been in a Lakh market. The women wear such dazzling, beautiful fabrics, the richest reds and greens, the brightest yellows and oranges, all glinting with gold embroidery and studded with gems. The patterns are intricate, the detail incredible.’ He stroked her arms. ‘One day I will take you there, if you wish it.’
A vision of freedom and movement: a hope to pin her colours to. ‘I do wish it, Lori. It sounds wonderful.’
‘There is freedom in movement. The road calls and you leave all cares behind and allow it to take you away, to where dreams await.’ She sighed and sank into his enfolding arms. He kissed her left ear, then her right, and she squirmed pleasantly. He nuzzled her neck. ‘May I claim that kiss now, Ella?’
She turned in his arms and faced him, his eyes inches from hers. She exhaled gently, hopelessly. ‘You may.’ She pressed her mouth to his and drank in his kiss. His mouth tasted of coffee. She felt her defences crumble as she let him guide her to the yoga mat, gently lowering her onto her back, kissing her throat, feeling his stubble rough on her neck and cheeks. His hand slid inside her sweaty tunic and stroked her left nipple, then unbuttoned the shirt. The decision taken, she was filled with urgency to get it over with, but he was in no mood to hurry and his movements became slower, more languid, his kisses gentler, less urgent, his touch more playful and teasing.
He bared her carefully, praising her with whispered murmurs as he slid down her body. ‘There is a Lakh text, a guide on the art of love. The first book describes the non-penetrative pleasuring of a woman,’ he told her and then he kissed her mound and ran his tongue down her cleft, his touch so exquisite it froze her. She clutched his curling hair and held him there as he tormented her with his mouth for what felt like hours, licking, sucking, until she came apart in a flurry of explosive climaxes, her whimpered cries hanging damp in the air.
Only when she had recovered did he slowly climb her body. ‘The second book concerns the penetration of the woman,’ he told her as he filled her. She squirmed beneath him, tried to rock her hips, but he stilled her. ‘Slower, amora, always slower.’ He felt huge inside her, and when at last he began to move, it took all the breath from her body.
They wrapped about each other, every movement building on the last, her senses filling with him: the way he sounded, felt, smelled, moved, all-pervasive and glorious. Her native reserve vanished and she found herself crying out, panting for breath as at last he pounded into her, bellowing like a bull as he came inside her convulsing body. It felt like aeons before she could think again. Her loins were slick with fluids, her skin with sweat.
‘That was wonderful,’ she whispered.
‘Thank you.’ He gave a slow smile, strangely serious, almost appraising.
‘What are you thinking?’ she wondered suddenly.
‘That you are a wondrous being. A magi, capable of all manner of miracles.’ He eased himself out of her and lay half-astride, his face pressed to hers. ‘But you are a woman, before all else.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m the queen-regent’s Champion – that, above all.’
He looked into her eyes. ‘You are a woman first to me.’ And he kissed her reply away before wrapping her in his arms possessively.
She kissed his cheek, suddenly shy now that the urgency of her need had been sated. For now. She felt a confused mess of hopes and fears churning inside her. Though her instincts were to draw away and gauge what this meant, it had been wonderful – better than she had dreamed.
‘So?’ she asked him playfully, ‘what did you wish to talk about?’
He grunted. ‘Women! Always in bed they talk talk talk.’ He laughed, but it was he who filled the silence, speaking of places he’d seen. The room filled with shadows as the night came on, but Elena barely noticed, her mind following his words, envisaging what he described.
‘The road sounds good,’ she murmured when Lorenzo paused at last.