“Or a horse?” She nodded. She raised her hands over her head, and brought them down gracefully to her shoulders. Then she lowered her head and batted her eyelashes at him, a gesture so arch and comical that he laughed.
A veil. A woman’s veil, weighted at the edges with gold animals. Most of the little weights had been washed away, leaving only the dog and the horse. Bartellus smiled at the child and handed it back to her. For a while she sat contentedly stroking the tiny beasts, following their tiny backs and tails with a small finger.
Bartellus wondered why the tattooed corpse was wearing a woman’s veil round his neck. A love token perhaps or, twisted, a murderer’s noose? He thought again of the brand on the man’s arm. He picked up a piece of stick and traced the S in the dust.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked the child. She looked at it, frowning a little, then shook her head.
“Neither do I,” he told her. “But it looks familiar. It was…drawn on the arm of the dead man we found.”
Her heart-shaped face clouded over again, and he cursed himself. What was the point of reminding her of her brother? Of a time when her brother still lived.
Bartellus sighed. “Time to be moving,” he said. She tied the veil neatly round her neck, patting the little animals. Then she jumped up, taking his hand.
It took them nearly half a day to get back to the Hall of Blue Light, with its familiar ledges and meeting maelstrom of waters. The storm had wrought many changes. They saw few people they knew there, and there were many newcomers. Bartellus was relieved to find Old Hal still in residence. The skinny old man, guarded by his four strapping sons, was the main conduit for food and fresh water in the upper Halls. Bartellus approached him, digging in his pouch again. He found the gold coin Anny-Mae had dug up in the shoals. He showed it to one of Old Hal’s sons, who stood aside and let him through to the father’s ledge.
The old man squatted on the floor surrounded by his hoard of food bags, pots of water and beer, and baskets of bread and roots. He looked up and cackled with enjoyment. “Bartellus, we thought you dead! Many of us dead these last days.” He shook his head in sorrow, whether for lost lives or lost profits Bartellus could not guess.
“I have brought the girl back.” Bartellus realised for the first time that he didn’t know her name. “Elija’s sister.”
“Little Emly?” said Old Hal. “And Lije?”
Bartellus shook his head.
Old Hal frowned and gestured to one of his sons, who gave Bartellus two fresh loaves of bread, some dried meat, and a large jug of water. Bartellus handed him the gold coin. Old Hal rummaged in a wooden box and gave him five silver imperials in return. Bartellus looked at them. A gold imperial equalled five silvers. He was wondering if the old trader had made a mistake, and whether to mention it, when the man told him, “A gold is worth more than five silvers down here in the Halls.” He shrugged. “That’s the way it is.”
Bartellus put the coins away, grabbed the food and made his way back to Emly.
It was many days before the old soldier found it necessary to join another hunting party. He and Em had fed well, and rested, and he still had four silvers left after he had bought them both clean clothes and himself a curved dagger. The silvers would last them a long time, but he had already received offers to work, and he could not go on refusing them. Turn down work when you can do without it, and the Gods of Ice and Fire will take notice, and there will be no work when it’s needed. That was his philosophy.
The hard decision was whether to take the child with him. There would be danger for her wherever they went, but danger for her alone here too. An old midwife had offered to care for the child, but she could afford her no protection if the patrols came or, if the gods cursed them, reivers. Bartellus had asked Old Hal if he would take Emly under his protection but the old man had laughed and shaken his head. And the girl had skills that a hunting party could use: her eyes were sharp and she was low to the ground so she could spot things others could not; she was light and could go where others could not.
So one morning, as the dark light filtered down through the lofty roof of the Hall of Blue Light, Bartellus and Emly set off again. There were four others, and they were heading towards the Wideawake Sluice. This was a major floodgate which filtered off surplus river water. An expedition went there most days when the streams were high. It was fresh stormwater and the pickings were easy. It was also a place where Dwellers congregated, trading news and gossip.
The party of six made good time and they only paused once, at the Eating Gate. The leader, a skinny leathery woman called Ysold, pointed down into the gate’s mechanism and Bartellus saw one of the great rolling barrels which chewed up passing debris was now missing.
When they reached a place where they could talk again, Ysold edged up to him as they walked.
She winked up at him. “Information,” she said craftily.
Bartellus frowned.
“There is money in information,” she told him. When he continued to look baffled, she went on irritably, “The Eating Gate is breaking up, man. It is weakened. Next time there is a storm perhaps another barrel will break free. Soon there will be nothing to stop all the rubbish in the City being swept down through the Halls. The lower tunnels will start to block up, then the upper levels, then the Halls themselves. Soon the entire City will be flooded.”
“Does no one maintain the Gate?”
She shook her head. “Time was when they sent regular teams down to repair it. Then, many years ago, they stopped. I don’t know why.”
Bartellus looked at her wonderingly, this tough old woman with beady eyes, wrapped in an old blanket with holes for her arms. How long had she lived here? He knew there was no point in asking. She would say what they all said: “Time out of mind.”
“But someone would pay for information like that. Someone in power,” she said.
She nodded at him, emphasising her point, but he shrugged. When he was someone in power, he had no interest in what went on beneath the streets of the City. If someone had crawled out of a drain and told him of a missing barrel in a mechanism which chewed sewage he would have sent them on their way with a flea in their ear and perhaps a hard kick to the backside.
But, “It is important information,” he told her pleasantly. “Yet I would not know who to tell.”
It was true. The emperor’s palaces were awash with administrators. The armies could not move without teams of scribes creating wagonloads of paperwork. New roads and bridges were built only after a thousand counsellors had made work, and wealth, for themselves. The long, and increasingly fragile, supply lines which brought food and supplies into the City were the subject of continuous debate for counsellors, palace officials, administrators and, of course, the generals.
But who considered what went on beneath the streets of the City? In that other City, which continued to give its own vital service daily—unseen, unconsidered, essential.
Ysold frowned at him. “The emperor, of course,” she told him eagerly. “Someone should tell the Immortal.”
Then, seeing the party was dawdling along, she snapped at them to pick up the pace and she hurried to the front, holding her torch high.
Bartellus remembered the last time he had seen the emperor. It was the worst day of his life. He hoped fervently he would never see the man again.
Up ahead Ysold marched along, setting a cracking pace, on a wide stone path bordering a low-running stream on their right. The six Dwellers had become strung out, with Em and Bartellus, holding a torch, as the dog-end.
Suddenly Ysold cried out, and in the instant Bartellus saw swift movement to his left. He ducked and twisted, and a club swished past his cheek. He lashed out with his torch, catching someone a glancing blow. He glimpsed black shapes against the moving torchlight. The man who had attacked him was big and broad. He was also slow. As he lashed at Bartellus again with a club, the old soldier drew his dagger and, twisting, slashed the man’s forearm. The attacker dropped the club, his arm
nerveless. He snarled and ran at Bartellus, head down. Bart, his back to the stream, threw himself sideways, letting go the torch. He hit the ground hard, and groaned as his knee shrieked in pain. He forced himself up. His attacker had fallen on the edge of the stream, and was levering himself up on all fours. Bartellus kicked him hard in the ribs and the man plunged into the flowing sewage and disappeared without a cry.
Bartellus turned to find Emly. He could not see her, and hoped she had scurried into the dark. He could hear shouts and blows and scuffling, but only one torch was alight, and it was lying on the ground at the far end of their party. He could see a man with a sword raised, menacing a huddled shape on the ground. Bartellus reversed his dagger and threw it, with practised accuracy, into the man’s head. He dropped like a stone. Bartellus ran to the fallen woman, but she was still.
Another of their party, a fair woman, was being dragged away by a man armed with a knife. Bartellus retrieved his dagger and ran towards them, but the man saw him coming, and with a single sweep, slashed the woman’s throat and dropped her, disappearing into a tunnel at his back.
Cursing, Bartellus turned to a youngster who was defending desperately against a man with a sword. The boy held a quarterstaff inexpertly, and was being forced back to the stream. He was wounded, and was stooping painfully.
Bartellus shouted and the attacker turned, his blood-drenched sword raised. Bartellus leaped at him, fury fuelling his old bones, and sliced at the man’s head. The man backed away from the blow and swept his sword up towards Bartellus’ belly. Bartellus twisted away awkwardly.
“My sword against your knife, old man,” grunted the black-bearded attacker, grinning.
Bartellus said nothing. He took deep breaths, rallying long-unused skills. The two circled and the black-bearded man risked a glance around, seeking his companions.
“No one can help you,” Bartellus snarled, and for the first time in eons he felt the thrill of battle rising in his chest. Strength coursed through him. Then time started to slow. He could feel the hilt of the dagger, comfortable and familiar in his palm, the texture of the rocky floor firm beneath his bare feet, and the strength in his shoulders and legs as he circled, balanced and ready.
The bearded man lunged towards him, his sword thrusting for Bartellus’ throat. He was so slow that the old soldier almost laughed. He had all the time in the world to sway sideways, all the time in the universe to choose his spot and to ram the dagger accurately under the man’s armpit, seeking the heart.
The man fell in the dust and was still as only the dead can be. Bartellus picked up the lone torch and thrust it into a cleft in the rock.
“Emly!” he cried, all strength suddenly gone, familiar fear returning. There was only silence, and he found it hard to breathe through the pain in his chest. He looked around. The boy had succumbed to his wounds. Ysold was gone, perhaps into the stream. Only one woman lived and she was gravely injured. Bartellus sighed, his heart cramped with regret.
Then he forgot his pain as the little girl came running out of the darkness. She ran straight to him, cannoning into him, and he bent down and picked her up. He held her close, relief flooding through him. He felt faint and he leaned against the tunnel wall, the girl still in his arms.
“Are you all right?” he asked her. “Not hurt?”
She stared at him, and he said again, “You’re not hurt?” She shook her head reassuringly. After a while he put her down and walked over to the semi-conscious woman. He sat with her for a long while until she died.
He thought back to that sunlit day when he rode from home for the last time. Companionably, it had seemed, the two men travelled slowly, talking occasionally. Astinor Redfall seemed subdued, Bartellus now believed with the unreliable clarity of hindsight. What was he thinking, this old comrade of his, as he escorted him unknowing to his trial?
The general’s home was in the far eastern outskirts of the city, in the farming country of Salaba. As they rode, most of the land they traversed belonged to him. Who owns that land now? he wondered to the darkness. My old friend, as payment for treachery? Even as he thought it, despite everything that had happened, he could not believe it.
It took them most of the day to reach the palace, riding through bustling Burman Far, the ratruns of Lindo, wealthy Otaro and finally the palace precincts. They had been in no hurry, and even now he liked to think the man was reluctant to bring him speedily to his fate. When they reached the broad avenue called Clarion, he paused, as he always did, to gaze up at the palace. He had first seen it as a child, yet he never failed to be awed by its beauty. Carved from rosy red rock, its source now unknown, the emperor’s palace entranced the eye and dazzled the comprehension. Men argued about how many spires and turrets there were. There was no answer. A man could walk round the palace and count them, of course, but that would be merely the number seen from outside. Within the palace, each window looked out on minarets, each internal courtyard was surrounded by spires, each narrow stairway climbed another tower. There was no internal plan anyone knew of. A man would go mad trying to make one. There were sixty-seven domes, he had been told. He had no reason to think this was true or untrue. He was not a man with a mathematical bent. Mathematicians and philosophers, astronomers and prophecers attended the emperor in droves. They were learned men, each in their way. They could speak on the harmony of the stars, the movement of the planets, the wisdom of the seasons and the majesty of the tides. Yet only the uncaring birds knew how many towers there were in the emperor’s palace.
And deep within the vast building were the emperor’s quarters, a fortress within a fortress, for the Red Palace was nothing if not a stronghold. For all its beauty, for all its flowered courtyards and gardens and fishponds and carvings, it was designed to keep out an invading enemy. The Immortal’s residence was walled with green marble, cladding the ancient stone of the mighty fort built on the site more than a thousand years before. It was called simply the Keep. There were few portals between the Red Palace and the Keep at its heart, and even the general had never set foot in there.
The riders trotted their mounts into the outer courtyard at the Gate of Peace. Here wide shade trees welcomed the tired traveller, and there were cool fountains to slake his thirst. The palace guards, knowing them well, stood aside, letting them through to an inner courtyard, called Northmen, its alabaster walls covered with carvings of wolves and the fierce werewomen who were their companions.
“I must leave you here, my friend,” said Astinor Redfall, black-bearded and powerful, as they climbed from their mounts. “I have supply business with a lord lieutenant.”
The general grasped his friend by the hand. “I will see you later,” he said warmly.
“Yes you will,” replied Astinor, looking into his eyes.
The general walked the familiar corridors through the new wing. It was said that three entire palaces of minor Families had to be demolished to make way for this addition to the Red Palace. The corridors were higher than in the old part, and wider, the windows larger and the way lighter. He passed a dozen courtyards, some buzzing with life, some quiet and sombre even on this sunny afternoon.
Then the pale marble walls around them gave way suddenly to richly decorated gold-encrusted alabaster of the public rooms. A wide shallow flight of stairs rose up to huge golden doors. The staircase was flanked by members of the emperor’s bodyguard, the Thousand, in their black and silver livery. The high doors opened.
The Immortal was seated in the public throneroom, surrounded by the usual generals, handmaidens, counsellors, lickspittles and toadies. Bartellus later remembered feeling flattered to have an emperor wait on him. He bowed deeply. When he lifted his head he was surprised his lord had not risen from his throne, embraced him, called him brother, as was his usual habit. Rather, the emperor frowned. The general’s stomach lurched.
Araeon was tall and fair, of late middle years, with a blond beard closely following the line of his chin. Only his eyes were black, a peculiar absolut
e blackness which contrasted with his pale countenance. Shuskara knew one of them was glass, but at times both eyes seemed to be deep wells brimming with painful experience. At others, as on that day, they were dead as the eyes of a butchered deer, reflecting dully the flickering torchlight.
The Immortal frowned and asked, “Are you really Shuskara?”
Shuskara smiled faintly, hoping for a joke. “Lord?”
The emperor twisted his face as if having difficulty remembering. “You look like the Shuskara I have known and loved for a lifetime, a well-made man of elder years, his eye clear and his brow free of the stratagems of compromise.” He looked around at his subjects, his face a mask of bafflement.
Stratagems of compromise? Shuskara had heard these elliptical ominous speeches from his lord many times before, but never as their target. He was unarmed, of course, in the emperor’s presence, but his general’s mind started evaluating tactics, seeking ways of escape. His eyes flickered over those present, seeking friends. He saw the Vincerii—Marcellus, First Lord of the City, and his brother Rafael—his fellow generals Boaz and Flavius Randell Kerr, these two making no attempt to hide their satisfaction. No help there.
“Have you nothing to say, soldier?”
I will not argue, Shuskara thought. They always argue, and the words always sound like pleas for their lives. And it never makes any difference.
“You have and always will have all my loyalty, lord.”
The emperor gazed at him for a long while. “Loyalty is an odd beast,” he said finally, musing. “Men speak of loyalty as if it were a simple constant, solid as that statue”—he waved a hand at something behind Shuskara—“reliable as the sunrise. Then we discover that loyalty can mean something else; it is dependent on changing conditions, perhaps passing seasons. It can mean compromise, appeasement, concession. Astonishingly,” he went on, his voice grave and entirely free of astonishment, “it can mean betrayal.”
Betrayal? As Shuskara’s world fell apart his first agonised thoughts were for his family. He forced out the words, “You have and always will have all my loyalty, lord.”
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