Come Armageddon

by Anne Perry

  “Because the enemy are barbarians?”

  “Yes.”

  “And are our men equal to the barbarian?”

  “Better.” That was said with confidence.

  “And how are they different, other than by being more efficient at butchering women and children?” she said quietly.

  There was a low rumbling around the room, fear, anger, dismay. Emotions were raw and too confused for thought, and it frightened them. She could feel it, like the heaviness in the air before a great storm.

  The soldier struggled for an answer that made sense to him. She saw it in his face, as did everyone else in the room.

  Balour leaned forward, opened his mouth, and then closed it again, waiting. Ulciber did not move but sat with his beautiful fingers steepled in front of him.

  “It’s war!” the soldier said bluntly. “It changes people. We learn to do terrible things. If you’re saying we’re no better than the men we fought against, maybe you’re right. That’s the price.”

  She felt a rush of pity for him so intense for a moment she floundered for words. He was like a thousand other men she had marched and fought beside, shared food with, talked with over the campfire, and owed her life to in the heat of the battle.

  “I know,” she said softly, her voice thick with memory and pain. “And it’s too high, but we know of no other, except to be conquered and lose all that we have built and fought for over the centuries. The tragedy is that when we become the barbarians ourselves, then we have lost just as surely. Whatever soldiers have seen or done, whatever they have endured to protect us, it is still a crime to rape a woman and murder her here in Camassia. That is what makes us different from the barbarian. We know better. We may do it in war, and that is grievous enough, but we do not do it in peace.”

  There was a rustle of ease around the room. She had offered them an escape from the turmoil of conflicting passions and fears. They were not barbarians after all. There was safety of mind, of conscience.

  Balour’s face darkened, the purplish hue creeping up his cheeks, the thin hair on his scalp bristling.

  “We are not at peace, woman!” he said sharply. “Haven’t you been listening? These young men leave their homes and their futures and go to the northern frontiers to fight to protect the rest of us.” He leaned further forward over the marble. “They are taught to commit acts of war in our name, to drive back the barbarian any way they can, and we are equally responsible with them for what becomes of them!” He looked at Ulciber. “Is that not your argument?”

  Ulciber was as calm as a summer dawn. “Yes, my lord, it is,” he agreed. “These men were ordered by us to raid the enemy villages, to put them all to the sword. They began by being as terrified and repulsed by it as any of us, but brutality becomes a way of survival, and in time it is no longer alien.” He turned to Tathea. “The first time it is an order, they have to be commanded to do it and there is no choice but to obey, or to die themselves. The next time it is not quite so hard, and by the fifth and sixth it has become habit.”

  Tathea looked at Balour, who was smiling, the tiny points of his teeth showing between his lips. Then she looked at Ulciber again. “Orders?” she, said.

  “Orders,” he repeated with sublime confidence. “In the army if you do not obey, you forfeit your life. They had no choice.” He looked up at Balour and smiled.

  Balour smiled back and inclined his head minutely, or it might have been only a spasm.

  “There is always choice,” Tathea replied steadily. “Sometimes it is terrible, and the price is death. That is the measure of your spirit, when the cost is all you have. Anyone can choose right when it comes cheap, but do not say there is no choice. We are better than that—all of us. We cannot choose to be beautiful or clever, to be talented, even to be loved, but we can choose to do the best, the bravest, and the most beautiful things we know. Callia chose it.” She gestured towards the accused in the box. “These men did not.”

  Balour sat up very straight, his chin high. He looked directly at Tathea.

  “Then I shall decide for you,” he responded, his voice thin and flat, “as is my duty to the nation. The men are not guilty. Set them free.”

  Tathea had expected it, but in spite of Ulciber, she had allowed herself to hope. Now she felt as if she had been hurled from a galloping horse. The ground had risen and bruised her, knocking the breath from her body. She had failed Ishrafeli and Severinus. She had failed Callia.

  She heard the roar of mixed elation and fury around her, as the court erupted in emotion.

  Balour banged his gavel on the marble but for once no one took any notice of him. Men and women were pouring out into the street shouting, cursing, jostling and knocking one another.

  The soldiers were escorted out and disappeared. Ulciber was nowhere to be seen.

  Tathea left her place in the court. She knew where Ishrafeli would be, and the fury and distress he would be feeling. Even though he had seen injustices all around and had heard Tathea speak of her lost battles before, he had hoped. Perhaps it was foolish, and against all the chances, but he cared so passionately he had allowed himself to believe. Now he would be angry and crushed, trying to help Severinus and not knowing how to.

  She found them outside in the small yard at the northern entrance. They stood silent, blank-eyed and stunned. The apology died on her lips. Words would help nothing yet. Together they walked under the archway out into the streets. It was a mild evening, the unblemished sky pale violet overhead, still touched with, colour toward the west. It bathed the shabby walls with a temporary healing.

  They passed little groups of people standing around, but here and there some were running, as if carrying urgent news. It was not until they were about a mile from their home that Tathea realised what was happening. A crowd was gathering with distinct purpose—ordinary working men, builders, traders, artisans, middle-aged family men. There was a deep, implacable anger in them. Many carried knives or cudgels of some sort, and their faces were dark with anger.

  Now she realised what the building was they were intent upon—a brothel! Ishrafeli pulled her to a halt.

  “They’re going after the soldiers!” he said with horror. “They must be in there!”

  She knew it. Perhaps it had all been inevitable from the moment they had been arrested.

  Severinus was scarcely listening. He was oblivious of the world around him. Everything he knew was inside himself, a huge, consuming emptiness too vast to allow room for anything else.

  “They’re going to execute them!” Ishrafeli’s voice was rising, close to losing control.

  There were thirty or forty men in the crowd now and there was a low growl from them like a pack of animals scenting a kill. The impetus driving them forward was unstoppable.

  The first of them reached the door, hesitated only a moment, then put their shoulders to it, heaved, stepped back and charged. It splintered off its hinges and fell under their weight. They poured into the narrow passage, pressing behind each other, pushing.

  There was surprisingly little noise, no shouting. The rage was too deep, and yet there was a hysteria below the surface like a pent-up scream, such a thin skin guarding it, it would take only a scratch for it to well out and fill the night with agony of confusion and pain.

  “They’re going to kill them!” Ishrafeli shouted. “We’ve got to stop it!”

  “You can’t!” Tathea caught at his arm, clutching fabric and feeling the muscle iron-hard underneath. “Ishrafeli! You can’t stop it! It has to run ...”

  But he had pulled away. “We’ve got to!” his voice choked. “They’ll kill them!”

  “I know.” She plunged after him, trying to catch his arm. “Don’t interfere, You’ll only make it worse! Do you hear me?”

  “I’ve got to!” he said, half over his shoulder. “Think what it will do to the law if they murder them! Think what will happen to these men. They’re ordinary people, decent most of the time.”

  Severinus
was still somewhere ahead of them, swallowed by the crowd closing in. It was nearly dark and there were torches everywhere, more and more flaring as new people joined, tense, pushing and jostling.

  Ishrafeli broke away from Tathea and she could not hold him.

  There was an eruption of noise. Half a dozen men emerged from the doorway, dragging the soldiers with them, whose faces were contorted with terror, eyes and mouths wide open, gagging with fear. One of them either refused to stand, or could not. His arms and legs thrashed around, but he was lifted and carried as if he had been a child, his weight nothing, his violence irrelevant. Somewhere behind them there were women screaming.

  The torchlight shone red on the blades of three broadswords. The crowd came to attention and sudden order, for all the underlying frenzy, as if this were to be a ritual.

  Ishrafeli had reached the front. Tathea saw his dark head a little above those around him. Then Severinus was there, crooked-shouldered, using his good arm.

  “For God’s sake stop!” Severinus shouted. “Stop, before you become just what they are!”

  The whole scene froze except for the flicker of torch flames in the breeze.

  One of the men turned his sword handle toward Severinus, offering it. “Do you want to?” he asked. “I guess you have the right.”

  “No!” Severinus’ voice was quivering. “I don’t want it done at all.” Perhaps it was the red torchlight moving on his features, but it seemed as if he were enduring a struggle within himself so intense the muscles of his face were contorted with its savagery. “I don’t want us to kill them at all. The law found them not guilty.”

  One woman yelled out a torrent of blasphemy. Another howled, like an animal in pain.

  Ishrafeli stepped forward beside Severinus.

  “Damn the law!” the man with the sword shouted furiously. “Everyone knows it’s a farce! They’re guilty as the damned. You of all men know that! Or does friendship mean nothing to you—decency? Does nothing matter any more?”

  Severinus swayed on his feet. Ishrafeli caught him, supporting him in his arms. But it was Severinus who spoke. “Everything matters—the law, the army, you, me ...” He swallowed. “Callia. But this isn’t the way!”

  The man’s face was stricken with disbelief, his voice choked. “The law has betrayed us. We are taking it back from men who are not worthy to act in its name. What they do is a mockery of everything that makes life decent. If we do nothing, then we’re part of it!”

  “No, we aren’t!” Severinus argued, shaking his head wildly. “We know what they are. Maybe we should try them again, or ...” His face crumbled with exhaustion and misery. “But I know that if we drag them out of their houses and kill them in the street because we don’t agree with the verdict, then we destroy the law just as much as they do!”

  His voice was drowned in a roar of anger. The crowd did not understand; it was naked in their faces and in the hard angles of their bodies and their clenched fists.

  “It’s time we made the law decent again!” a voice shouted from one in a group of men in tradesmen’s rough clothes.

  “If we don’t, it’s no good to any of us!” another added.

  The man with the sword faced Severinus. “If we let them get away with this, it’ll happen again. Next time it could be my friend, or my family, or his!” He pointed randomly into the crowd. “Or his! Or anyone’s. It’s too late to save the blind woman, but what about the rest of us, eh? If you don’t care about that, at least don’t try to stop us!”

  “You can’t ...” Severinus began, but he was overwhelmed, pushed and shoved roughly. He lost his balance and stumbled. Ishrafeli went down with him.

  Tathea charged forward, shouting and punching her way through until she was next to him to support some of his weight, hopeless and pointless as she knew it was. Others were pushing towards him also, angrily, threatening him in their fury and their frustration at being balked in their need for action, justice, the illusion that they had some kind of control.

  Ishrafeli scrambled to his feet, refusing to lean on Tathea.

  “How dare you?” he shouted furiously. “Hasn’t this man suffered enough, that you attack him now? He’s only trying to save you from yourselves!”

  One man waved a knife in the air, his face dark with anger. “Then get him out of my way! We’ve suffered too! This is our city, and it’s time we took it back again, and made the law something that protects us all! We’re a laughing stock, and we won’t take it any more!”

  Ishrafeli rounded on him. “And what will you be if you murder these men in the street?” he shouted. “Dozens of you, breaking into a brothel and hauling them out to kill, because you don’t agree with the verdict of the court? Is that your idea of justice?”

  “My idea of justice is that rapists and murderers get executed,” another man shouted across them both. “If you’d let them free then you’re no better than they are!”

  There was more shouting, rising closer to hysteria. A woman started to sob in fear, and another joined her. Someone began to scream.

  A stone was hurled and only just missed Ishrafeli, but it fell long, and clipped another man on the elbow, causing him to bellow with pain.

  The shouting grew louder, out of control. People were shoving more roughly. A punch was thrown, then another. Retaliation was immediate. Within moments there was a tangle of fists and curses, men fighting with all their pent-up helplessness and frustration—the outrage at injustice, the fear for themselves and those they loved, exploding in the need for action.

  The four soldiers were lost in the mêlée.

  Severinus was staring in horror at what had happened around him, too bemused to protect himself.

  On every side people were fighting, some of them with knives. It was as if a madness had taken hold of them. The driving need to lash out had swept away all reason.

  Tathea lost sight of Ishrafeli and panic seized her. She struck out, desperate to reach him, terrified that he could be trampled by the mob.

  She found him, battered and indescribably angry, but Severinus was gone. They fought and stumbled their way through the darkness and the flaming torchlight, the noise of blind rage. Finally they reached the comparative safety of an alley leading to a flight of steps up the hill. They huddled close, protected by each other’s bodies.

  “You can’t help,” she said at last, her mouth half muffled by the top of her cloak where it tied around her neck.

  “I lost Severinus.” His voice was shaking with grief. “They killed him. They didn’t give him a chance.”

  Tathea moved even closer, putting her arms around him. “I know.” She nearly added that Severinus had fulfilled the giant in himself, but Ishrafeli was too caught up in ordinary, human grief, and guilt for his own part in what had happened, to hear that now.

  They stood motionless for a little while longer, then turned and walked the rest of the way home without speaking again.

  She fell asleep still holding Ishrafeli close in her arms, but when she woke he was sitting on the bed in the hard morning light. He was dressed as if he had already been out. His face was pale, the lines in it cut deep. She saw in his eyes that there was something yet worse that he needed to tell her.

  All thought of her own feelings vanished. She sat up and put out her hand to his shoulder.

  He shook his head fractionally, but something inside him eased at her touch and he put his hand over hers. “They found the bodies of the soldiers an hour ago. They were hacked to pieces.”

  She leaned forward very slowly and buried her face in the side of his neck.

  She felt his arms slowly close around her. But it could not undo what had happened to Callia, to Severinus, to the people and the City.

  The public reaction over the next days was not as everyone had expected. There was no jubilation, no sense of victory or restitution. Ordinary people were shocked by what they had done, and horribly, bitterly ashamed. Balour and the courts had made a mockery of the law, and then
they themselves had made it worse.

  If the people did not uphold the law, then it was of no value for anyone. The boundaries that created a civilised society were destroyed. If those who believe in the law do not abide by it, or they feel it wrong, then how can they expect it to protect them from those who do not believe in it at all?

  The most startling thing was the number who were no longer willing to obey Balour. Their fear of him became less than their fear of the anarchy they had seen within themselves. They had been conquered by a moment of darkness within, something close to chaos of the soul, and they drew back from the brink.

  Weapons were laid down. The first, stumbling steps were taken towards peace.

  Asmodeus watched, and planned, and bided his time. The seeds of division he had sown between Tathea and Ishrafeli were beginning to grow. He would reap the harvest yet!

  Chapter XII

  SADOKHAR CONTINUED HIS JOURNEY through the wastes of hell because as long as he was moving at least at times he had the illusion that something could change. He might find Tornagrain, though everything within him rejected the idea that he could even look at him except with loathing.

  The more he saw of the inhabitants of the endless dust and rubble, the less did he imagine any of them leaving. He watched them digging, cursing, quarrelling with one another in useless fights. Not once did he hear a word that perhaps they had brought this upon themselves, and change within might produce something better, if not escape, then at least a mode of life more bearable, even constructive. Each was consumed with self-pity, justification for all they did, which at the same moment was also self-disgust. Never did he see a minute’s compassion for another, a hand reached out in kindness, or a word of encouragement offered. They were crowded together, sometimes banging into each other clumsily, and yet each was desperately and utterly alone.

  Watching their futility, Sadokhar lost his temper.

  “Fool!” he shouted at one man who was picking rocks off a pile and throwing them on to another. “Why don’t you build something useful? What’s the point in that? It’s just stupid!”