The City

by Stella Gemmell

  He waited, and eventually she said, “When we met last, you asked me about a brand you found on a tattooed corpse. Did you ever discover its significance?”

  He was surprised and wondered that she should remember that after so long. He shook his head. “No, but only today I came across the meaning of some of his tattoos. That was why I was looking at that book.” He thought of Fell and the fact that he bore a brand too, but decided not to mention it. “I could follow the soldier’s career, in part, from the pictures on his body. Anyone with access to army records might be able to find out who he was.”

  She appeared to be half listening. Absently, she said, “Tell me.”

  “He served with the 24th Vincerii, and the Emperor’s Rangers when they called themselves the Lepers. Now, that was for a very short time about eighteen years ago, when I was serving at the Salient.” She nodded. “And,” Bartellus added, “he had fought at the Second Battle of Edyw.”

  She nodded. “The survivors from that are a small, select company. Quite easy to trace, I’d have thought.”

  A peevish part of him felt like saying, “I thought you weren’t interested in military matters?” but instead he told her, “Of course, it does not mean he fought on our side. We don’t know how many Blues still walk around bearing that tattoo.”

  “You think your dead man could have been an enemy?”

  He watched her face as he answered, “He also bore on his back the symbol of the royal bodyguard of Odrysia. Under Matthus.”

  “An intriguing corpse indeed,” she commented drily.

  There was a long silence, and Bartellus watched the woman. She seemed to be thinking, staring sightlessly at one of the lamps. He wondered again how old she was. How much could he trust what she said? Could he trust her at all? He looked away, out at the darkness resting against the windowpane. This meeting felt like a conspiracy, but what poor conspirators they were, two old folk, both with failing memories.

  At last Archange said, in an apparent change of subject, “Indaro’s name was Indaro Kerr Guillaume.”

  Bartellus had a sudden image of a slender, ascetic man, with dark, hooded eyes, staring at him across a dinner table, subdued anger, then a sudden burst of laughter.

  “I knew her father,” he said. “Does he still live?”

  “I believe so.”

  He shook his head. “That is a miracle. They bear the name of two Families, twice the threat to the emperor.”

  “The Immortal valued his advice. Still does, perhaps,” she said. “And Indaro was just a common soldier. And a woman. Twice unthreatening. There was also a son, who disappeared.”

  She looked at him. “That was why Indaro was in the Halls. She was seeking her brother.”

  “Tell me about the Hall of Watchers.”

  Her hand went to the silver at her neck. The hand was brown and wrinkled and looked as if it had been dried in the sun. “It was as you guessed. It was a lifeline for young women who did not want to fight in the war. And did not want to get pregnant to avoid it. A way station before I could smuggle them away to safety. You disapproved at the time, I remember,” she added pointedly, flicking her gaze to Emly, who was watching them both, drinking in their words.

  He was not going to defend himself. “I changed my mind,” he said simply. “What happened to them?”

  “They went mostly to non-aligned lands, and sometimes to our enemies.”

  “I read a book recently, it was hundreds of years old, but it spoke of wraiths living in the sewers of the City.”

  She frowned. “I saw no wraiths or ghosts or spirits.”

  “Does that work still go on in the Hall of Watchers?”

  She shook her head. “It is under many feet of water now. The Great Storm wrought untold damage to the sewers. I’m told”—she shrugged as if to take no responsibility for the news—“one of the engines that filters the water was destroyed.”

  “The Eating Gate?”

  She looked at him blankly, clearly not remembering their previous conversation. “Possibly. I only know what I was told. Debris, pieces of houses and tree branches, corpses, were swept farther down into the sewers, breaking existing dams and creating new ones elsewhere. The geography of the Halls is completely changed. Where once it was dry it is now underwater. And some tunnels which were raging torrents are now dry. I am told. I have not been there for years. And it changes all the time. It is unstable. It was once a dangerous place to be. Now it is deadly.

  “And,” she added, “the water level is rising throughout the City. Many levels below the Red Palace, in the ruins of palaces long forgotten, the water rises daily.”

  Then she offered, “The Hall of Watchers was under the emperor’s palace, deep down, far beneath the dungeons even. It once was a palace itself, thousands of years ago.”

  “How did you get to it?”

  But she looked out into the night. “I must be gone,” she said. She struggled to get up, impatiently waving away Bart’s proffered hand, leaning on the arms of the chair. When standing she gazed at Em. Archange asked, “Did you know your father was a great general, child?”

  Em, eyes huge, shook her head.

  “Did you know he is not your father?”

  Bartellus felt dread clutch his stomach, for it was something they had never discussed, and he had no idea how much Em remembered.

  But Emly nodded her head calmly.

  “And do you remember your brother?”

  Another nod.

  “You don’t say much, do you?”

  The girl lowered her eyes.

  “She has gotten out of the habit of talking,” Bartellus said.

  Archange looked at him, and her face was grave. “I will make you the same offer I made eight years ago. Give the girl to me. I will see she is safe. She will be educated, well-treated. She may even, after a while, somewhere, take up glassmaking again. Can you do any of that for her?”

  Bart glanced at Emly, who was watching them both warily.

  He said, “I will give you the same answer I gave then. I will leave that up to Emly.”

  The woman replied, “Your danger now is greater than it was then. Then you merely faced death by drowning. Now you face imprisonment and torture, both of you.”

  A bolt of fear shot through Bart’s chest, but he nodded calmly. “I will think on it, Archange. Truly. Thank you. How can I contact you?”

  She thought. “You cannot. But I will find you.”

  He asked, “One more thing. Was it you who freed me from the dungeons?”

  He thought she was going to give one of her annoying elliptical replies, but she said, “Yes. Not personally. But it was one of my women.”

  “Thank you. You must have thought I was mad when I did not know you in the Halls.”

  She reached out and patted his hand. “No. I saw a man grievously wounded. I am glad you are healing. Be safe. Get away from here.”

  He opened the door and stepped out into the side alley, looking both ways. He could see no one. Then she stepped out with him, and he saw a shadow, two shadows detach themselves from a wall farther up. She gave Bart one last glance then hurried away. He watched as the three turned into Blue Duck Alley. He went back in and closed the door, locking it. Em was watching him.

  “Who is she?” she whispered.

  She had been born into the nobility, Bartellus told Emly. Into the great imperial Family of Vincerus. She was sister to Marcellus and Rafael, considerably older than the brothers. But, or at least this was how the story was told, when their father died Archange became completely dependent on the boys, then just children, and she a woman of mature years and independent nature.

  She was a great beauty, Bartellus explained, with many suitors among the rich and powerful, and among those seeking to be rich and powerful. Yet she chose to marry a soldier, and not a common soldier, but a foreigner many years younger than herself. The marriage did not please the two boys who controlled Archange’s life, and they opposed the liaison and shortly after
wards the young foreign soldier disappeared, killed, paid off, fled—no one knew.

  Archange vanished from the pages of the City’s history for many years. When she reappeared again it seemed she was still determined to embarrass the Vincerii. She chose to call herself an advocate, interpreting the City’s labyrinthine and frequently contradictory laws before the emperor’s counsellors on behalf of supplicants. This was clearly no suitable task for a woman, and the Vincerii, it is said, tried to dissuade her with promises and with threats, but she already had gained the permission of the emperor, who clearly had his own agenda, and Marcellus and Rafe had no means to rein in their sister.

  At first Archange was outstandingly unsuccessful as an advocate. She represented mainly women left destitute by the death of a father or husband or elder brother, falling calamitously from a life of ease to one of hardship and shame. Archange tried to wrestle the City’s serpentine laws into a shape which benefited them. And mostly she failed. But after a while she had some small success, and her causes became, for a while, fashionable.

  Then Archange overstepped herself. She agreed to speak at a criminal trial, a sensational one, one which Bartellus could never forget, a trial which the woman won, in a way. Afterwards she disappeared for a second time, and eventually the uncaring world forgot her name again.

  “You can pack one bag,” he told Emly. “We will leave at dawn.”

  Then he frowned, remembering their servant. “Where is Frayling?”

  Chapter 19

  Emly was packing her bag in her tiny candlelit bedroom. She folded into it her two spare dresses, and added stout winter shoes, thick stockings and drawers. There was also her warm coat, but she would wear that for it would be cold at dawn. Into the cloth bag she threw a handful of the cheap jewellery she had bought at market stalls, wooden bangles and beads of painted clay. She took a deep breath and tried to be practical. What would they need? Then she went downstairs to the kitchen and found candles and soap.

  Trudging back up to her bedroom she realised tears were running down her cheeks. She hurried into her room and closed the door. She did not want Bartellus to see her crying.

  She lay on her bed in her old brown dress and stared at the ceiling. There was no chance of sleeping, so she would lie there until dawn. She wondered where they would sleep tomorrow. Her mind was full of the words she had heard, and she sorted through them, trying to make sense of them.

  Despite what her father thought, she had no regrets about leaving the House of Glass. She had allowed herself to become happy, but deep down she had known that happiness would be short-lived. Her life had been a story of flight, and she was grateful for their four years there. The most important thing, the only important thing, was to keep Bartellus safe. Although the old woman Archange had called him Shuskara. Was that his real name?

  She got off the bed and went upstairs, paying a last visit to her workroom, to see if anything there might be useful on their flight. She picked up the heavy pliers used to cut the calms, and a narrow scalpel for slicing paper. Both could be used as weapons, she thought. She wandered over to the north window, opening it and peering down to the alley. Below was a pit of darkness. No one moved. She heard distant sounds, muffled laughter, the hoot of an owl, the rumble of carts. She remembered it was the middle of the night, for Archange’s visit had kept her up far beyond her normal bedtime, and most of Lindo would be fast asleep.

  The only lights were farther up the alley, where a few low windows shed patches of light onto the cobbles. Early shift workers, she thought, or whores. Then in the distance she saw a shadowed figure appear briefly in a patch of light, then vanish again into darkness. Her heart beat faster and she watched as the figure appeared again in the next light and, before it vanished again, she saw it was a man with a crutch, coming slowly towards the House of Glass. There was a long gap before the next light, and Em waited impatiently. Finally the figure crept into the light and then there was no doubt, for he stopped and leaned against the wall as though he could go no farther, beaten and bowed.

  It was Frayling.

  Hours before, Frayling stood leaning on his crutch, looking up at the merchant’s house, determined not to leave empty-handed after such a long struggle to get there. He knew he had barely the energy to get back to the House of Glass this day, and he feared crossing the City at night. But he could not admit to himself that he was beaten.

  He drank some water from the fountain, then sat down on the far side of it, where he could not be seen, his back against its warm stone wall.

  He tried to concentrate on the problem at hand, but his thoughts kept drifting to Emly. The day he had first seen her had been the first day of his life. Among the wretched and downtrodden, the halt and the lame of Lindo she had seemed to him like the girl who lived on the moon, in the stories he was told as a child, who stepped down from her home in the sky at night, to walk among the poor giving gifts to children. Emly was dark and quick as a bird, graceful and strong as the ghost cats that patrolled the rooftops. Her small fingers were nimble, and his favourite days were those when he was asked up to her workroom to help her bind the glass pieces with lead calms. She was the kindest person he had ever met, for he had met very few in his difficult life.

  He had been working at a stonemason’s, helping shift the heavy stones for the master carvers to make their marks on. It was hard work, but it was all he could get, and when he was finished for the day he could do no more than sleep until it was time to work again. His leg pained him constantly, and he was paid barely enough to keep body and soul together. He was limping home to his hovel late one day when he heard the new occupant of the house opposite Meggy’s was looking for a servant. By the time he got to Blue Duck Alley there were thirty or more men outside the tall crooked house, and arguments and scuffles were breaking out. Frayling stood at the back of the crowd, leaning on his crutch, cursing himself for wasting sleeping time on a fool’s errand. Then an old man stepped out of the house and surveyed them all. He was a tough old boy, Frayling thought, with hair gone grey, and light green eyes.

  “I want an honest man,” the old man announced, looking around him, “a veteran who will serve me as he once served the City. In return I will pay a fair wage and meals.”

  It turned out that every man there had served in the army, even Frayling, who didn’t know a broadsword from a branding iron. The old man started moving among the group, asking questions, his speech sharp, his pale eyes quick to seek out dishonesty. At last he came to Frayling.

  “Your name?”

  “Frayling, lord.”

  “What regiment?”

  Frayling blushed and looked at his feet. “The 42nd, lord.”

  The old man frowned. “42nd what?”

  Frayling tried desperately to remember anything that sounded military, but his mind remained empty, and he stared hopelessly at the ground.

  “Are you honest, Frayling?”

  “Yes, lord,” he replied wonderingly, having just been caught in a lie.

  “How did you injure your leg?” the old man asked.

  “A childhood accident,” Frayling confessed with shame.

  “Can you manage stairs? This house is built mainly of stairs,” the man said.

  “Yes, lord,” Frayling answered, his heart leaping. “I can do anything as well as a man with two good legs.”

  “Come with me and prove it,” the old man told him. “And don’t call me lord.”

  The sun was going down on the warm quiet square when Frayling scrambled clumsily to his feet. He had decided to have one more try, one last hope of earning a look of gratitude and admiration on Emly’s face. He limped across the square and, pushing down his fears, rapped firmly on the door again. After a very long time the same servant opened it.

  Frayling cleared his throat and spoke his rehearsed words. “I wish to speak to your master.” And, in an inspiration which sealed all their fates, he added, “The veil I am seeking is priceless, and if it is not returned to my lor
d’s house he will seek redress in the court of the Immortal.”

  Emly took her work shoes off and, holding them in one hand, flew down the stairs to the hall. She did not want Bartellus to hear, and add to his worries. She quietly eased open the door. Although she was in a hurry, her years of hardship had made her cautious, and she locked the door behind her and pocketed the key before running up the pitch-black side alley. She heard pitter-pattering sounds in the lane at her feet and imagined rats running alongside her, keeping pace with her. She had not been out in the hours of darkness for several years: the cool night air was stimulating and she felt her spirits lifting.

  She found Frayling still in the same spot, the wall holding him in a sitting position, although he seemed to be asleep.

  “Frayling,” she whispered, and he stirred. Recognising her, he gathered his crutch under him and tried to stand. Then she saw the blood on his face and body. She tried to help him to his feet. She was too small to put her shoulder under his, but she supported him with her arm around his waist as they slowly limped homeward.

  “What happened?” she asked. One side of his face was a bloody mess, the eye closed. There was blood on his jerkin, but she did not know if it was from the face injuries or other wounds.

  “Merchant’s men,” he whispered, eyes downcast, “two of them, beat me. I asked for the veil.” He groaned, from pain or frustration.

  In her mind’s eye Em saw herself going to the merchant’s house, perhaps with militia hired by her father, and demanding the veil and redress for Frayling’s injuries. Then she remembered they were to disappear that dawn, and she realised they could not take Frayling with them, for it would be too dangerous for the crippled man. She knew he adored her, this tall shambling man with his useless leg and kind heart. He wanted to be her protector, and she wished that he could. She had seen too much of men’s savagery, and understood something of the hideous lives suffered by many women, the poor and the unprotected. All her short life she had relied on others to keep her safe, first her brother, then Bartellus. It frightened her that just one old man’s life stood between her and a possible future of pain and misery.