The City

by Stella Gemmell

  He felt the warm solidity of certainty in his chest, and his spirits soared at his own words. He almost felt like laughing. In truth, he would kill a thousand men if it would put a smile back on his daughter’s face.

  In the days that followed Em was consumed with worry about the threat of the watcher, despite her father’s words. But eventually fear of the unknown soldier had been replaced in her heart by fear of the trip to the merchant’s house.

  Now the day had arrived, the warmest of the year so far, and Emly sat in a jolting carriage, her father beside her, followed by three carts holding the precious cargo as they made their way through the dusty City. At the last moment, leaving the House of Glass, Emly had snatched up her old veil to protect her from the sun and the hot swirling dust. Now she was glad she had it, for their little cortege was accompanied by an armed guard, employed by the merchant, of more than thirty soldiers. She and Bartellus sat in the open carriage facing backwards, watching over their valuable cargo. Bart was quite at ease among so many soldiers, and they joked and laughed with him as they marched alongside, but Em found it hard to bear the covert looks of the men, and she ducked her head and looked down at her best blue dress. As ever, she stroked the tiny horse and dog attached to the veil. Over the years five more animals had joined their strength to weigh down the veil. But it was still the horse and the dog she loved, and she galloped them across her blue lap, exercising them on this sunny morning.

  She had kept the veil after they escaped the Halls, for it was her only possession apart from the ragged clothes the warrior woman had given her. In times of fear, and there were many in their first days out in daylight, she would clutch the wadded, dirty cloth in her fists, and gaze at the horse and the dog and pretend that she lived in a safe place and the two animals were her best friends. It was some time before Bart found them their first home, and a great deal longer before she started to feel secure there. Then she washed the veil over and over, cleaning out the last remnants of the sewer, laying it out in the cleansing sun to dry. Spread out, she could see it was cunningly made of a shiny thread that was fine but tough. It was a long time before she realised there was a pattern in the lace. The pattern had probably been clearer, she thought, when the veil still held its tints. There were animals concealed in the stitchwork, following each other in a circle. Once she found one, the others were easier to see. There was a dog and a horse, a strange misshapen creature she discovered was called a wyvern, a seahorse, a rabbit and a dolphin. And in the centre was a gulon, its bushy tail curled around the shape of a heart. Delighted, she had shown the animals to her father, but his eyes were too weak to discern them among the intricate threadwork and, besides, he wasn’t really interested.

  The going was very slow and there was a long way to travel in the jolting carriage. They descended the winding length of Blue Duck Alley until they reached the wall of the temple of Ascarides. Then they followed the wall, with its sturdy lean-to shops and merchants’ houses, and passed the barracks of the Maritime Army, now empty and echoing, a dark place under the summer sun. They crossed the edge of Burman Far, Bartellus pointed out to her, with its temples and bathhouses, and on to Otaro. They had travelled nearly half a day before they reached the Avenue of Victory.

  “Look,” her father said, nudging Em. “You can see the Red Palace from here.”

  Emly pushed back her veil and peered in the direction he was pointing. In the sun she could see distant towers gleaming.

  “Green?” she asked, frowning.

  “Some of the towers are covered with gold, they say, more probably copper. But the old part of the palace is built of pink marble imported from the western continents many hundreds of years ago.”

  She smiled politely, but Emly only wanted to learn about things that lived, that ran and swam and flew. Not old buildings.

  The carriage and its following carts turned sharply away from the avenue into a narrower street lined with high buildings. It was cooler here, where the sun could not reach them. The walls were high and looked damp, and green moss crawled up them, clinging to the dank brick.

  “We’re nearly there,” said Bartellus quietly, and Em’s stomach clenched with anxiety.

  They drew up outside a tall house, standing alone on one side of a quiet square. The square was six-sided, paved with warm golden stone, with a fountain in the middle. Em looked up at the house, of the same soft stone and decorated with carvings. There were many windows, and above each was a carved beast, an animal or bird or fish. Above the main door in front of them were two porpoises, leaping side by side. Em smiled to herself and her stomach relaxed a little. Perhaps this merchant had commissioned her sea window because he liked creatures of the sea.

  As the carriage pulled up the main door opened and a flurry of servants rushed out. Two brought wooden steps to the carriage, for Emly and Bartellus to climb down. The same two then accompanied them up the three wide shallow steps to the door, hovering as if to catch them if they suddenly tumbled down. Inside the porch more servants offered Em and her father cool water in crystal glasses. Meanwhile, the rest were busy unloading the glass panels as the soldiers stood by. Em could hear Frayling’s high anxious voice offering diffident orders.

  They were shown through to the courtyard of the house which, Em was charmed to see, was a replica of the square outside, six-sided, with a pool full of colourful fish in the centre. Here the merchant met them, florid and sweating, effusive and kind. As Em gazed round the courtyard, taking in the windows and carvings, sidling towards the pool to look at the fish, he smiled and asked, “Do you like my house, Miss Emly?”

  She nodded and whispered politely, “It is…pretty.”

  The merchant smiled broadly at the first words he had heard from her. “It is indeed. It was built more than five hundred years ago for a companion of the emperor. She loved all beasts and birds and creatures of the sea, and you will see many throughout the house. It is called the House of the Creatures of the Earth.”

  Em was delighted by the name, and the merchant, pleased, led them through another doorway guarded by porpoises into an inner courtyard replicating the outer one, then through a third porpoise door into a hexagonal parlour lit by lamps. It was dark in there, and cool. The merchant glanced upwards then looked quizzically at Emly. She craned her neck. The roof of the parlour was of glass, she was surprised to see, obscured by a riot of greenery and white flowers.

  “In the summer we permit plants to grow across the roof to keep the room cool,” the merchant explained. “In winter they are cut back to allow the sun in.”

  There was no one else in the room. Em sat in a corner of a comfortable upholstered sofa with running cats carved into the wooden arms, and Bartellus and the merchant discussed the news of the City. Em was quite at ease, her father at her side, until the room started to fill with guests.

  Then Bartellus arose. “I must go and help Frayling,” he told her. “Stay here and I will find you when I can.”

  He ignored her pleading eyes and vanished out through the door, struggling a little against the crowd pressing in. The merchant was greeting people and laughing, and Em sat back in her seat and tried not to be noticed.

  For a while she was ignored and she sat, head down, tracing the lines of the carved cats with her fingers, wondering how long it would take for the craftsmen to fix the marine window in place, how long she would have to stay there.

  “Miss. May I get you some more water?”

  She looked up and saw a servant standing respectfully at a distance, his head bowed. She shook her head.

  To her relief he went away, but he shortly came back with a plate of food—pink shrimp on small pieces of bread. She shuddered at the sight, thinking of the living shrimps frolicking on the ocean floor in her window.

  The servant bent his head to her and whispered confidentially, “They are serving squid and leviathan next.”

  She looked up at him, appalled, but he was smiling and she realised he was teasing her and smiled back n
ervously.

  “May I sit down?” he asked.

  She looked about her, for she was afraid he would get into trouble, then she realised the servants moving among the guests bearing trays of food and drink were all dressed in cotton smocks. This young man was wearing handsome silk clothes and shiny leather boots. She felt foolish, and before she could react he had sat down beside her, one arm at her back, saying, “I am Tolemy, and this house belongs to my father.”

  His face was close to hers, and she ducked her head and tried to lean a little away from him, but he only leaned in, and she could smell wine warm on his breath. His features were even, handsome even, but his eyes were bright with drink and his speech was slightly slurred.

  “I have just seen your sea window,” he said. “It is a marvel that such a girl could make so fine a work. Your hands must be very cunning.” He slid his hand across one of hers. It was hot and damp and, repelled, she moved her hand away.

  “My father told me you were a girl of few words, Emly,” he said. “He also told me you were a beauty, but it is hard to tell underneath that pretty veil. Will you not take it off for me?”

  She shook her head, looking round, wishing her father would come back. The guests standing around them in groups all had their backs to Em, making a wall in front of her, and she felt she and this man were alone. She decided to go and search for her father, or the merchant, but when she tried to stand she found Tolemy was sitting on her skirt which had spread across the sofa. As she struggled to get away he laughed.

  “Take your veil off and I will let you go,” he whispered, pressing in towards her, one hand creeping around her waist, then up to her breast, cupping the softness, then pinching the nipple hard.

  She tore the veil off and thrust it at him, and he sat back and laughed out loud, releasing her skirt. She jumped up, just as the merchant came into view, staring suspiciously at the flustered girl and his laughing son.

  “Are you all right, my dear?” he asked her, glowering at Tolemy.

  She nodded, aware she was flushed and dishevelled. “Father?” she asked.

  “They are nearly ready. Would you like to come and see your window?” He held out one hand to guide her way. She nodded gratefully.

  She took no pleasure in the presentation of the sea window. Its placing, in a high wall where the morning sun would shine through it, was well-judged. The guests in their silks and rich jewellery, applauded and praised the workmanship, and the merchant made a speech, congratulating both Emly’s work and his own fine judgement. But she could still feel Tolemy’s hand crawling on her, and inside she railed at herself for being such an innocent. Bartellus stood beside her, his head high, proud of her and her work, but he quickly saw the anxiety in her eyes. Mistaking its cause, he said quietly, “It looks wonderful, little soldier. Don’t you think so?”

  She nodded and raised a smile for him, for it was true, it did, and he told her, “In a few moments we can go home. Away from all these people. I’m so proud of you.”

  He patted her shoulder and she wanted to throw herself into his arms. But she knew she could not tell him about the merchant’s son, for he would be angry and feel the need to protect her. And that reminded her of the watcher again, and she was afraid.

  It was only when they were safely in the carriage, and well on their way back to their home in Lindo, that she realised she had left her precious veil behind.

  Chapter 18

  Dawn was just a faint pink light in the east of the City when Bartellus let himself out of the House of Glass into the new morn. He locked the door and put the great iron key in his pocket. Limping slightly on his painful knee, he walked up to Blue Duck Alley and sniffed the air. There must have been a fall of rain in the night, after they returned from the merchant’s, and the morning felt newly washed.

  He headed off briskly towards the library. Bartellus wanted to put distance between himself and the House of Glass before the world awoke. He had left instructions to Emly and Frayling not to open the door to anyone.

  The Great Library was just opening as he arrived, its east doors groaning open to let in the low rays of the sun. Bartellus made his way through the yellow-green light to his habitual table. He sat down and wondered what he was going to do all day. He was surprised Carvelho had not returned the latest pile of documents.

  A docent, a thin old woman with a shuffling walk, came slowly over and handed him a message, resentment on her face. “This has been waiting for you for three days,” she told him. It was from Carvelho, to say his wife was ill and he would not be at Bartellus’ service. Bart frowned. His ordered life was being disrupted on all sides. He crumpled the note up and threw it on the table, and stared at the pile of documents in front of him: old books, their leather bindings hanging off, rolls of dry ancient paper, each with a dangling name tag, and sheaves of documents in brown folders. He realised he had no interest in reading about the City’s architecture that day.

  Instead he pulled towards him the book Cryptic Codes: Formal and Informal Insignia among Armed Men. He turned to the back, then the front, for an indication of how they were arranged, but there was no index. He sighed and started at the beginning.

  Almost immediately he found one of his own tattoos—the green serpent with a rat in its coils, symbol of the 14th Imperial Infantry, the Ratcatchers, long since disbanded. Fell would have the same tattoo, he reflected, and Astinor Redfall, if he lived.

  Another custodian came by, and raised his eyebrows at Bartellus, perhaps commenting on his early arrival. Bart gave him a stern look: none of your business, and the man went on his way.

  Over the course of the morning the old man tracked down three of the smaller tattoos he had remembered on the corpse’s body, and found that the soldier had served with the 24th Vincerii, and the Emperor’s Rangers, two decades before, who then called themselves the Lepers, and he had fought at the Second Battle of Edyw. A distinguished service, indeed, although there was little to stop any fool of an impostor having the tattoos inscribed. But Bartellus remembered the many old wounds on the man and believed his tattooed friend was an authentic soldier. He uncrumpled Carvelho’s message and wrote the names down on the paper, confident he would not remember them the next day.

  At last, flipping idly through the pages, he came to the one he was seeking near the back of the book: the rampant goat with flickering red tongue. He sat back in surprise, then looked again. It was surely the same tattoo; it could not be mistaken for any other. He turned to the start of the chapter; it was called Allies and Tributaries. Then he turned back to the tattoo and the inscription beside it: Royal bodyguard, under Matthus III, last ruler of Odrysia, king of the Little Sea.

  Bartellus looked again at his aide memoire. The Second Battle of Edyw. He had marked it in the book with a fragment of paper. He turned to it, then sat back again, his mind returning to slaughter. The first battle of Edyw had been a triumph, Shuskara’s armies of the east outnumbering and outmanouevring the Blueskin tribesmen. The City companies had settled down in the invaded lands and achieved a measure of security. This lasted a season, a long, warm spring. But their inevitable reward for success was to be given a more difficult task. Shuskara was ordered to push north and east towards the Little Sea, up the Edyw valley. There were mountain ranges to left and right, peaks confidently held by tribesmen who were on their home territory and eager to take revenge. They sat back in their mountain holes and waited until the City’s supply lines were stretched to the breaking-point, then they attacked. Thousands of City soldiers died in the first two days. The generals were ordered to retreat, and the ones at the rear were able to. Shuskara had the hideous choice of pulling his forces back to safety, or staying and trying to back up the beleaguered forces in the front line. His troops dug in.

  The Second Battle of Edyw, he knew but had since forgotten, was the only time in the history of the City’s armies when veterans of both sides in a battle had adopted the same tattoo. It was a grudging tribute to the other side, a rec
ognition that in a battle in which both armies had fought each other to a standstill, losing more than nine in ten of their men, there was more that united the common soldiers of the two armies than separated them.

  So his tattooed friend had fought for the City, in infantry regiments, and against it, in the bodyguard of the Odrysian king. And he had fought at Edyw, but on which side? The book had raised as many questions as it had answered.

  Inevitably his mind turned down well-worn tracks to the veil he had snatched from the man’s neck, the veil which, for some reason, Emly cherished and which she had worn only the previous day. It was a piece of fine threadwork. Had it also come from Odrysia? He resolved to look at it again when he got home. Bartellus was concerned about Emly. He had hoped the previous day would leave her proud, with her head high. Instead she had been anxious and upset when they returned from the merchant’s house. The day took more out of her than he had expected.

  His thoughts were idling when he suddenly realised he was being watched. He looked around. Far across the library a man stood leaning against a desk. He did not appear to be looking at Bartellus, but the old soldier knew in his bones that moments before the man’s eyes had been on him. In the watery light Bart could not see the man well, except that he was tall and rangy, with light hair. A soldier, almost certainly.

  He rubbed his tired eyes and when he looked again the man was gone.

  Bartellus closed the book and thrust it to the bottom of the pile of documents. Then he grabbed his coat and followed the stranger’s steps. When he reached the spot where the man had been standing he looked around. Ahead of him was the main corridor to the front doors of the library. On either side were several smaller doors, leading he knew not where. Shrugging to himself, he hurried down the corridor. Reaching the high dark atrium, clad with stained and dirty glass, he paused again. There was no one in sight. But the heavy front door was just closing, settling with a soft sound on its familiar iron latch.