The City

by Stella Gemmell

  “Handsomely.”

  The ambassador looked at the floor. “I cannot…in all conscience…” he started. Then he had an idea. “I must return and discuss this with my peers,” he said, managing a thin smile which, he guessed, looked ingratiating. “It is not a decision I have authority to make myself. You will hear our decision very shortly.”

  He looked up again at Marcellus, and wished he hadn’t. The man was not frowning, but his face had lost all expression. He looked suddenly older, like his own father. And his eyes, his eyes had lost all…life. They had disappeared. They were just two empty holes in his face. The ambassador blinked.

  “You are lying,” Marcellus said flatly, his voice as cold as winter seas. “You are lying because you are a weak man who does not dare to say no. You are right in that. It is best not to say no to me.” Each word was heavy with meaning and with each one the ambassador felt the life and energy being sucked out of the room.

  Marcellus was silent. His strange eyes held the ambassador.

  “I…no…I,” was all the man could manage.

  He felt he was being sucked into the eyes; all the room was being drawn in. And the palace and City and the world. The eyes were dark dreadful holes filled with emptiness that would never be filled. He was being drawn in and he would never get out and he would spend eternity in the horror of the emptiness. Terror closed his throat and he started to panic and he felt his limbs were flailing about, although he knew he was really seated immobile on the couch. The sane part of his mind prayed for unconsciousness or the relief of a heart seizure. He was drowning in the blackness, gasping for his last breath forever, through an infinity of eternities until the world ended and the skies fell and still he would be struggling for one last breath and…

  “Yes!” he gasped.

  Then there was release.

  He never lost consciousness, nor believed he was in a nightmare. For the next hour he lay curled on the snakeskin couch in the empty room shaking with fear, fear that was totally focussed. He was terrified of Marcellus, of what the man could do to him and his wife and children, terrified of the possibility of even seeing him again. At last his colleagues from the isles, wondering, came into the Serpent Room and helped him, trembling, to bed. The ambassador did not sleep that night. The next day he signed the pieces of paper placed in front of him. On the voyage home he had a seizure of the brain. He lingered, cared for by his loving wife, for half a year and never spoke again.

  The Serpent Room had been built more than two hundred years before, and was once the Lord Chancellor’s bedchamber. It was buried deep in the palace, and its single window looked out on one of the palace’s myriad enclosed courtyards. Because the Chancellor was an important man, a water closet had been secreted in the wall in a corner of the courtyard, with doors both to the chamber and to the outside. At some time the inner door had been walled up and forgotten, but the small dark room still existed. Nothing could be seen from within it, but much could be heard of what happened in Marcellus Vincerus’ favourite parlour.

  After silence fell in the room there was a long pause, then the listener heard the door to the Serpent Room open and close and there was silence again. The listener wondered if the luckless ambassador was still alive, for it sounded as though the First Lord of the City was strangling him. The listener shrugged to himself, too concerned with his own safety to worry about a foreigner. He waited long anxious hours until it was pitch-dark before he let himself out into the courtyard and made his way to his room to write his report.

  Chapter 31

  Dol Salida read the listener’s tiny, precisely written words early the next day, then he set a light to the paper and watched as it flared then became ash. He sat back and stroked his moustache absently.

  The report told him little he did not already know. It was hardly a secret that they needed slaves. The City was fighting for its life. The population was dwindling; it was rare to see anyone of fighting age walking the streets, and the sight of children, playing or labouring, was increasingly rare. When Dol was a child he had had several years of schooling, even in the poor quarter of Barenna where he was raised. Now there were no schools, for there were few children to attend them and no one to man them. The City was filled with the old, the maimed, the forgetting and the forgotten. Workers were still needed, though, to mine metal and man the foundries which produced armour and weapons, and to build ships and the new defences.

  Yes, the City certainly needed slaves, although, Dol thought, Marcellus must be getting desperate to insert himself into the problem. Did he coerce the ambassador to agree to his proposition? The spy’s report was unsatisfactory. Marcellus was a ruthless man; he would not have the power and influence he had if he were not. But would he really half strangle a foreign ambassador to get him to comply? It seemed…well…crass. Marcellus was known to be even-tempered and, according to the bland words of the report, the ambassador said nothing to arouse the man’s anger. Dol Salida had checked with the palace that morning and found the delegation had left at dawn, all present and correct.

  Dol reached down a hefty file of papers from a shelf above him. The file was marked Hallorus and appeared to be a minute report, wearisome in its abundant detail, of the daily doings of an Otaro businessman with interests in the manufacture of body armour. The man existed, but he was of no concern to Dol Salida. The dossier was in code, one of the urquat master’s own devising, another legacy of his time in the prison camp. It was about Marcellus. It contained every word Dol had heard spoken about the First Lord of the City, everything he had read, everything he had surmised from his daily interactions within the palace and outside with people who had met the man, or who knew people who had met him, his body servants, or their relatives. If Marcellus was mentioned in his hearing, the date and time of the conversation was noted, along with who did the speaking, and to whom, with cross references to their own files.

  Dol’s main employment was for Dashoul, the palace’s head of intelligence, to use his wide network of friends, comrades and relatives to seek out and hunt down truanting girls, and some boys, who should be serving the City’s armies. For this he was paid, though not handsomely. His brief to study Marcellus—in truth, to spy on him—was one which took little time but a great deal of his attention, and he received no pay. His patron had made it clear he would receive only her gratitude and the remote chance of future advancement.

  There were files on all the senior members of the Families, though few had political or military influence any longer. Of them all the files on the Guillaumes and Khans were thickest. Neither Marcus Rae Khan nor Reeve Guillaume had been seen in the Red Palace for decades. Yet each was an important player, in his way. Marcus was of a similar age to the Vincerii, a senior general who took no part in the emperor’s strategic plans, for he ruled his own army and went where he wished. He was indispensible though, a commander of brilliance, whose troops adored him, and the palace had to put up with his unorthodox tactics for it could not afford to lose him. Reeve Guillaume was a politician, one who had always stayed scrupulously loyal to the Immortal. Despite this he was under effective house arrest in his home on the Salient, and had been for twenty years.

  The Hallorus file was one of many and Dol Salida perused them all regularly in the comfortable silence of the night, for he had long since given up sleeping in a bed because of the pain in his leg, and he very seldom slept at all, just dozing a little in his study. So he updated the dossier, in his fine, disciplined script, then the brief file on the Wester Isles ambassador.

  Then he browsed through other references to the emperor’s death, of which there were hundreds over the years. After an hour or two of this he sat back again and let the information percolate through his mind.

  The Immortal had been emperor for as long as Dol remembered. Try as he might, he could not find any record of when he came to power. All emperors of the City are named Immortal which made it impossible to pin down the dates of their successions. He had to enquire ta
ctfully, for it was considered disloyal, treacherous even, to suggest that the title Immortal was anything other than the literal truth.

  Marcellus was another matter. He was a man of integrity, soldier, politician and historian. But he was not without weakness. Despite his vital role in the City and therefore the war, he would spend half a year on the front line, fighting with his troops, something which seemed reckless to Dol Salida, who knew as well as any that a stray missile or unlucky sword blow would kill the First Lord and cripple the City’s ability to make war.

  His other frailty was his liaison with Petalina. Marcellus was wed to Giulia Rae Khan, sister to Marcus, but the woman had long since returned to live with her family in their palace on the Shield, and Marcellus was free to dally with his courtesan. Dol had no moral objection to the affair, yet it showed a fallibility in Marcellus he found surprising. But it made his own job easier, and if Petalina had noticed that she saw more of Dol Salida when Marcellus was in the City, then she did not reveal it.

  Again he wondered about the new maid Amita. A few questions in the right quarters had revealed that the one family who had not employed her was the Kerrs, so where was she from? It was possible she was retained by Marcellus himself, to keep an eye on Petalina. Or by persons unknown, to watch Marcellus. The possibility that she was employed by Marcellus was the only thing that was stopping Dol from taking her in for interrogation.

  In a palace beset by intrigue, his loyalties were conflicted to say the least. The fact that he spied on Marcellus did not trouble him. Marcellus was de facto leader of the City, and as such was the focus of everyone’s attention.

  The old soldier suddenly felt his body stiffening from long hours in his chair, and he stood up with difficulty, stretching his useless leg, sweating as the pain clawed at him. If I were a braver man, he thought, I would have this old leg cut off and be done with it. He bent and peered out of the study window. Dawn was a pale promise in the east and the streets were still dark. Sniffing, he could smell baking bread. His spirits rose a little. Another long night over. In a few moments his servant would come in with food and drink and his day would begin.

  Amita was growing increasingly anxious. The sheaf of plans she had stolen from the library weighed heavily on her. After the first night she had taken them from the hiding place in her spare clothing and secreted them in Petalina’s dress rooms. She had written a brief note to her unknown contact, describing where the plans were, and left it in the gap in the buttress wall. But the next day the note was still there, damp from overnight rain, and there it had remained for two more mornings.

  Early each day, after her first chores were complete and before Petalina awoke, Amita went to the wardrobes and took out the plans and pored over them. She traced her fingers along the faint lines, trying to interpret the tiny writing, and attempting to discover some correspondence with the corridors and chambers she passed through daily. Nightly, barefoot and shrouded in black, she roamed the palace, building up her knowledge of its geography, its vast, labyrinthine wings on many levels. And each morning she attempted to discover what she had seen in the stark lines on the plans. It was a while before she realised that the plans had originally been drawn in coloured inks, and that the different colours had faded at different speeds over the years. She guessed that the levels of the palace were each allocated a different colour. This helped her orientate herself.

  When she found the first landmark she knew, the Pomegranate Stair, a pale spiral of ink, she took up her pencil and hesitantly drew a small square beside it on the plan. Then she repeated the square on a piece of blank paper and wrote Pomegranate Stair in the City script. That led her to the Library of Silence, and half a dozen other points in the part of the palace she recognised, and she became bolder, drawing them on her explanatory paper with a firmer hand. Each day she left the paper rolled up with the plans ready to be collected. But no one came for them.

  On the third day, while Petalina took her afternoon nap, Amita wrapped up the plans with her notes inside, and pushed them under the shoe bags. She could not lock the rooms, for her contact had to get in, and her fear was that the under-maid, who cleaned them, would notice and report the unlocked room to Petalina. But she thought it unlikely, for she had made a point of being kind to the girl, and she hoped the maid would tell her about the unlocked rooms rather than go to her employer.

  Biting her lip she hurried through the garden, glancing at the buttress wall. She wondered what she should do if the note were never collected. She had no other way of contacting her friends. The days were getting shorter and colder as the Day of Summoning loomed. She shivered as she let herself back into the warm apartments.

  “Where have you been?”

  Petalina was standing in her white silk shift looking out of the window. You could not see the buttress wall from there, but Amita felt a whisper of fear, as if her employer could guess what she’d been doing.

  “I was brushing your gowns, lady,” she said, a rehearsed excuse. “I do some every day, so I don’t have to do them all at once.”

  “How very economical of you. Every afternoon, when I nap?”

  “Yes.”

  “And at night, when I wake up and you are not here? Do you brush gowns then?” Petalina had an expression on her face Amita could not interpret. She decided to be as truthful as she could be.

  “I sometimes walk the corridors, when I can’t sleep.” She lowered her head, contriving to look contrite.

  “It is not safe out there at night. There are soldiers about, who would take advantage of a girl like you,” Petalina told her sternly. Then her face softened and she smiled. “Or is that what you’re hoping for?”

  Amita was shocked. “No, lady!” she cried, dismayed that the woman would think that.

  But Petalina, with a wave of her hand, had dismissed the matter. “Look at this!” she said, holding out a small bouquet of pink and yellow roses for Amita to admire.

  “It is very pretty,” the girl replied, taking it and sniffing it. The roses were fresh, but were interleaved with silk petals and linen leaves. It was pretty, but Amita wondered what it was for.

  “It is a corsage,” Petalina explained. “Marcellus wants me to go to the Little Opera House tonight and he sent this for me to wear.”

  “To wear?”

  “Pinned to my gown.”

  Amita privately thought the weight of the thing would spoil the line of any dress, but she kept her thoughts to herself. At least Petalina, easily distracted by a few flowers, seemed to have forgotten her nightly excursions.

  “If you are to meet the lord tonight there isn’t much time,” Amita offered. Getting Petalina bathed and powdered and dressed and decorated always took hours. She handed the flowers back, but Petalina cried, “Ouch!” dropping them. She sucked her finger then showed it to Amita, like a child. “It pricked me,” she complained.

  As she bathed Petalina talked guilelessly about Marcellus, and Amita listened with half an ear. The woman was a contradiction and a puzzle. Much of the time she behaved like a girl of sixteen, sometimes like a child of six. Yet Amita knew she was an intelligent woman and there were moments when she caught a look of cool calculation in the courtesan’s eyes that was at odds with the words she spoke. She had no doubt Petalina had not simply forgotten her night adventures, and she resolved to be more cautious in future.

  By twilight Petalina was more quietly elegant than usual, in a grey silk dress, with a row of moonstones at her throat. As she picked up the posy to pin on, Amita thought the garish roses would add nothing to her beauty. Then she saw a drop of blood marring the silken petals of the corsage.

  Petalina was aghast. “It’s ruined!” she cried, her eyes wide with the drama. “The blood will never come out!” She glanced at the doorway where two tall guards waited to escort her. “And I’m late already.”

  Amita bit her lip. “I will mend it,” she said reassuringly. “I will cut out the damaged petals. There are so many of them it will never show
.”

  Petalina stared helplessly from the flowers to Amita. With her wide brow and huge blue eyes, she looked like a worried kitten.

  “But I’m late already,” she repeated. “The Little Opera House is on the other side of the palace.”

  “Then go now, lady. I will mend this and run after you. It will only take me a few moments.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “I’ll find it. I’ll catch up with you. I promise.”

  Petalina turned to the door, looking up trustingly at the two bodyguards in their black and silver armour. When they had gone Amita ran to her workbox and found a tiny pair of scissors. She carefully cut out the bloodstained petals, then looked at the result critically. It was lopsided. She turned the posy over and found hidden petals underneath. She snipped one out and with a needle and thread, sewed it in place of the damaged ones. She tweaked the roses a little to hide the stitches. It would have to do.

  With the posy in one hand and her skirts raised in the other she ran out of the apartments and down the corridor.

  She knew in theory where the Little Opera House was. It was in the middle of a lake to the west of the palace. This meant she had to follow the corridors straight ahead until she came to the green marble walls of the Keep, the heart of the palace, then bear left until she reached outdoors. Once outside, she hoped the lake would be obvious.

  Heads turned and soldiers laughed coarsely as she sprinted down the marble and stone corridors, skirts raised, posy in hand. She ran through narrow corridors with low white ceilings and high halls with ornamented vaulting, up and down steps and stairs. She was out of breath when she saw the first of the sea green walls ahead of her. She ran round a left-hand corner and found herself at the top of another staircase. She plunged down it, then stopped suddenly at the bottom, frozen.

  Walking sedately out from behind a marble pillar was a gulon.