The Tower of Living and Dying

by Anna Smith Spark

  How can one live, away from her?

  I am like a wife forsaken,

  A child motherless, a house empty and closed.

  I am like a man thirsting, forsworn in the desert,

  Lips dry with dust.

  Oh Sorlost, most perfect, most beautiful.

  My words are as ashes, my heart as gravesoil.

  Oh city of gold and sorrow—

  Better to die,

  Than to think of you standing

  Without my feet on your stones.”

  The last tremor of the voice died away. Orhan shivered. A few of the men wiped tears from their eyes. The lament for the city. The secret fear of all who lived in Sorlost, that they would waken from their shared illusion and never see her again. The bronze walls, the golden light, the corridors of the Great Temple: the perfection of this place in which we live that is a memory of a memory of a dream. To live in the sublimity of ruins, the eternity of never quite dying, dust and dust and dust gilding the beat of our hearts. Thus how can any other place in all the world compare?

  Really, of course, the grief of exile is only a metaphor for the inevitability of death. Why we sing these songs. Mourn the city we will never leave. A reminder that all is futility, and yet we go on.

  Tam Rhyl’s family were exiled somewhere. In Immish, living hand to mouth. Abandoned and alone there.

  A desperate desire in Orhan to speak to someone about something normal. Outside himself. He turned to the person nearest him: “He’s very good, the singer.”

  The woman who had been playing yenthes. She was chewing keleth seeds, her breath smelled milky sweet. Flakes of dead skin clung in her hair.

  “Would he be insulted if I offered him silver?”

  The woman laughed. “No. But he’d be best off without.”

  The poet had returned to his corner, drinking from a cup from which tendrils of smoke seemed to rise. A firewine drinker. Older than most survived to be. Orhan could see, now he knew, the tremor in the man’s hands, like the tremor in his voice. The same note of slow poignant decay.

  “He sang for the Emperor once, in his youth,” the woman said. “The Emperor gave him an arm-ring of pearls. ‘The Pearl Singer,’ he was called, after that.”

  “The Pearl Singer? But I have a book of his poems! That’s him?” He it had been who compared life to the sand wind, teetering on the edge of never achieved relief. God’s knives, Orhan thought, he must be ancient. Not this lifetime of the Emperor, or even the one before.

  “That’s him.”

  Orhan gave the woman a handful of silver dhol. “Would you give these to him slowly? Or, no, see that the owner gets them, gives him food?” She took the coins with a smile. She might, of course, keep them. Spend them herself on keleth seed.

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “Thank you.”

  The poet sang again a little later, another song of exile. His voice was more tremulous, slurring, losing the note; several times he forgot his words. Orhan left when the song was over, began walking home in the thick hot night. The wind rose again, scattering dust, banging shutters, showering Orhan with dead leaves. His skin prickled in case a knifeman or a blast of mage fire was waiting for him. It had been very foolish to go out alone. For a moment, passing the Street of All Sorrows, he thought of turning up at Darath’s, throwing himself at Darath’s feet. Or perhaps he should go to the House of Silver and throw himself at March’s feet. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive.

  The streets still ran with people, whores wrapped in bells creeping across the marble, street sellers offering cool drinks rank with dust, a knife-fighter in white with the hatha scars was circling, looking for someone to kill him and let him feel again for a moment a man. From a dark alleyway a child’s voice called. One of the women stopped staring down into the dark. Things moving. She took a few steps, cried out something, fled away into the lights of a square where a conjurer made coloured birds race on the wind. The voice turned to laughter. Something there best left unknown.

  I should go to the Temple, Orhan thought. Pray. Remind myself of the mercy of the God.

  I should go home, he thought. So March is dying. What of it? I knew from the beginning that he would end up dead. Him or me. I should have told Darath I was grateful. I should have told him about the child. I’m a fool. It’s late. Go home.

  Instead, he stopped again to watch the conjurer. Afraid of returning to his house and his life: if I stay walking forever none of this will come to be real. An eternal dream. The man wasn’t a bad performer; a small crowd clapped in applause. The woman was watching. Beside her, a young man, turning to look at Orhan, feeling him see him back. Orhan caught his breath.

  A young man in the flower of his manhood. Glossy deep black skin, long black silky curls. Lips as red as the juice of pomegranates. Eyes as big as the night sky. A narrow waist, fine smooth muscled arms and legs. Like an antique statue. Like a painting on ivory. Too beautiful to be real. Men did not look like this in the living world.

  The young man’s mouth opened, smiling. Orhan shuddered. Smiled back. Go home. Go to the Temple. Go home. Go home. The young man moved over towards him, graceful, lilting like the music had been. The same fine slurred tremor in his movements as in the poet’s voice. The same cause. Rotten teeth in the perfect mouth, stained with firewine, fragments of keleth seeds on his lips. Sweet drugged desperate breath. His fingers drummed on the cloth of Orhan’s sleeve. “Five dhol.” Go home. Go home. As beautiful a waste as the poet. Too beautiful for this. “Five dhol. Or for you, amber eyes, four dhol.” Go home. Go home. “Who sent you?” Orhan almost asked, “just kill me, please don’t do this. Not this first.” “Four dhol.” Orhan’s hand went to his purse. “Four dhol.”

  It was dawn when Orhan returned home. The house was silent. A few early house servants scurrying across the hallways with cloths bound to their feet to damp any noise. Birds were singing in the gardens. He had had to knock, of course, to rouse the door keep; the door keep stared yawning, looked mortified that he had been asleep. Orhan went down to the cold bathing rooms and scrubbed at himself. Dirty. Cheap heavy perfume was smeared on his skin and clothes. Sweet and sensual and rancid, like the smell between a man’s legs. He rubbed himself with salt and oil to try to cover it. Abrade it away. A bathgirl, woken in a panic by the door keep, came in to take over; there were distant footsteps as others ran to stoke the fires, get the water hot. Orhan sent the girl to bring him tea.

  His eyes were gritty with tiredness, his head aching. Do I feel guilt? he thought. Do I? I should. Did I enjoy it? he thought then slowly. I don’t know.

  The cold water was beginning to wash some sense into him. By the time the girl came back with the tea jug he was shaking. After his bath he sat in his bedroom and stared at his hands.

  God’s knives, he thought. God’s knives. Why?

  Bil came in without knocking, dressed in a night robe. Showed her breasts very white. The huge curve of her belly. She’d agreed never to come into his bedroom. She sat down on a couch and stared at him.

  “Orhan … Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Do you want me to send a messenger for Darath?”

  “No!” Far louder than he meant. Bil flinched. “No. Just leave me alone.”

  “One of the bathgirls woke Nilesh. She woke me. They were frightened for you.”

  “Just go away. Tell Nilesh and the bathgirls to mind their own business.” I will not, Orhan thought wretchedly, be an object of pity in my own home.

  “It’s not Darath, is it?” Her scars coloured, real fear in her face. “Lord of Living and Dying! Nothing’s happened to him?”

  “No! It’s nothing! Just go away. Leave me alone.”

  “I’m your wife, Orhan. I do care about what happens to you.” Bil got to her feet with a sigh. “I’ll go, then.”

  As she moved towards the door Orhan almost cried out to her to stay. To tell h
er. Ask her what to do. She stopped in the doorway, like she was waiting for him to speak. A pause held between them. Both waiting for the other to speak. But he didn’t speak.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Couldn’t sleep either. Kept thinking about March and Darath. The young man in his squalid room opening onto an alley soaked with piss. Hands on his hands, a mouth on his mouth, fucking and gasping and collapsing with a cry of triumph on top of the perfect rotten body, oozing firewine sweat from its luscious luminous radiant skin. Sharp, bitter desire. Different from anything he’d felt for Darath or anyone else. I think I did enjoy it, then, he thought. And still he did not feel guilty. Perhaps it was just too unreal. Couldn’t have happened. He’d been at home asleep all night, dreaming. The man was a memory of a dream.

  He lay with his eyes closed seeing black hair and black skin and March thrashing in fever until March sweating and rolling in pain was all muddled and merged with the young man twisting and sweating in fake ecstasy under Orhan’s weight. He felt sick with fever himself. Sleep starved. As sleep wasn’t going to come he got up and dressed.

  Bil was awake, sitting in the garden listening to the girl Nilesh read. A stab of guilt towards her, seeing her, her belly, her child there. She ignored him. She knew he had done something terrible. He stood in the hall of his own house, lost.

  He should go to the palace. Do something, while he waited for Darath to find out what he’d done and come looking for him.

  Please come looking, a part of him whispered. He had a sudden, chilling horror that Darath would ignore him. Wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t care. Would fuck the man himself, longer and harder and better, and pay him more.

  Would tell everyone and anyone the truth about that night and his plans and March and Tam … Well done, Orhan! You just did the one thing you’re classically never supposed to do when intriguing for power. But maybe he’ll forgive you, you just need to tell him he’s still the better lover, yes?

  Bil came into the hall. She looked very tired, shadows under her eyes. She smoothed her hands over her belly.

  “We should get a food taster,” Bil said.

  “A food taster? What? Where in the God’s name are we supposed to get a food taster from?”

  Bil gestured towards the doorway. “There are enough hungry people in Sorlost.”

  “That’s vile!”

  She flushed scarlet. “But do you want to die?”

  We should get a food taster, he thought. March is probably regretting that too.

  Go back to the palace. Pretend everything was normal. Bury himself in work. Serious, dull, calm things. So very effective that had been, after all, yesterday. He took the full complement of guards with him, leaving only the four for the house and two to watch. They trooped through the streets he’d walked last night. People drew back out of the way as they passed. Still, occasionally, looks of respect and admiration, Lord Emmereth who had saved the city from despair. But mostly now whispers and fearful glances. Lord Verneth’s murderer. A gang of men with swords.

  “He’s dying of heat flux!” Orhan wanted to shout to the crowds. “Heat flux!” If he said it enough times it might somehow come true.

  When he got to his rooms in the palace, Secretary Gallus was arranging letters on the desk. Looked at Orhan a moment with the same nervousness as the people in the street. Perhaps I should throw a huge party, Orhan thought. Watch them all finding reasons not to eat or drink. We should have done it before the wedding, Darath could have saved a fortune in catering costs.

  He said, “Good morning, Gallus.” Heard his voice weak at the edges. A new, harsh, grating tone to it.

  Gallus said formally, “Good morning, My Lord Nithque.”

  Orhan looked wearily at the pile of papers. “Anything of any interest?”

  Pause. “Another letter from the Immish Great Council, demanding recompense for the Immish merchants attacked during the … the Immish invasion. Another petition from the money lenders, demanding reparations for the destruction of their property during the, uh, the same.”

  Pause. “Court gossip from Chathe: Prince Heldan seems sensibly reluctant to consider an Ithish wife. Court gossip from Allene: Queen Amnaia is pregnant again, father unknown. Her older children are piqued at it. As one might expect.

  Pause. “And this.”

  He handed Orhan a piece of parchment.

  Court gossip, this time from Malth Tyrenae, the Ithish court. The Ithish equally reluctant to consider Prince Heldan as an Ithish princess’s husband, and thus putting the Chathean delegation’s disdainfully wrinkled noses very much out of joint. They are leaving in a hurry, threatening dire things for the insult to their prince. Yes. But all this has been of little notice, for the king and all the court are very preoccupied with the news from the White Isles, indeed talk of little else. There has been great disorder there, the old king is reported dead. Both of his sons are claiming the throne in his place. There is likely to be war between them, all think. This despite the fact, as I told you before, that it was said openly only a few months ago that the elder boy, the Princess Marissa’s child, was dead. Orhan stared at it in astonishment. “Civil war. Great Tanis. The stupidity of these people. But it might tie up the Ithish, I suppose. Even Immish, it might distract them. Two boys. The Immish might feel duty bound to back the younger against Ith. Or …” But I can’t see why you’re so nervous, he thought, looking at Gallus’s face. You’re afraid, Gallus. Why in Great Tanis’s name should you be afraid of this?

  “No, My Lord Nithque.” Gallus pointed to a passage halfway down the page. “I … Read from … this part here. ‘The elder prince, Marith, the Princess Marissa’s child, has a woman with him …’”

  The elder prince, Marith, the Princess Marissa’s child, has a woman with him, and concerning this woman some very strange tales are told. She is claimed to be the High Priestess of Great Tanis the Lord of Living and Dying, He Who Rules All Things, the One God of your Empire of Sorlost. It is said that the prince himself has been heard to boast of this. You will know, of course, that he does indeed claim to have been in Sorlost, and even to have led an attack on the Imperial Palace. Of this also some very strange tales are told, but I myself do not now believe them. For I had gathered from you yourself that the Immish attacked the palace. Though the Immish deny it. But they would. But to return to my story: the woman is said to be young, barely out of her girlhood, and very beautiful, with dark skin and black hair, and her eyes are blue. The High Priestess, I believe, is described as such? All here are uncertain regarding this, for another story is circulating that both the High Priestess of Sorlost and the Emperor himself are dead. Of this, too, there is much uncertainty; that the Emperor is dead I know for a lie, as you yourself told me. However, whoever she is, the prince is said to be besotted with her and has ordered her to be called “Queen” and plans to marry her—although you will remember that last year he was said to be equally besotted with a young nobleman, who is now certainly dead—

  Dead.

  Dead.

  Gallus said, “You see, My Lord?”

  Orhan put the paper down. His hands trembling. The sudden choking stink of burned flesh and spreading blood. I’m going to be sick, he thought. The world was spinning, the ground lurched away into unsteady shifting dark. It’s not true. It’s stories. Delusions. Dreams. Lies. A great terrible weight clung on his shoulders, he felt a thousand years old, sick from his bowels to his head. I’m going to be sick, he thought. I’m going to be sick.

  “My Lord?” Gallus was looking at him. Terrified.

  “Who … who else knows about this? Has seen this?”

  Gallus said, “No one but you and myself, My Lord Nithque.”

  Gallus said, “As yet.”

  The stories started in the wine shops the same day. A friend of a friend had met a merchant who traded with a man from Reneneth or Skerneheh who traded with a man from Ith or Illyr who’d met a man from the White Isles who’d had a strange tale to tell. The Altrersyr were stirring, fi
ghting among themselves, planning war. A new king had been proclaimed there who was Amrath come again. He was as tall as a mountain, as beautiful as the sunrise, his sword dripped fire, his watch words were ruin and death and pain. At his side was a witch woman sworn to Great Tanis the Lord of Living and Dying, who had abandoned her god for his love. For her sake, he had burned the Great Temple, razed the Summer Palace, battled dragons, killed the Emperor’s own guard. He was King of the White Isles and every man on the White Isles loved him. He was King of the White Isles and any man who did not fall down and worship him, he killed. His face shone with light. His eyes were too terrible to look at. His lady was the most beautiful woman in the history of the world.

  “Lies.” “Absurdities.” “Blasphemy.” “The High Priestess Thalia is dead.” “The heir to the White Isles is dead.” “The heir to the White Isles was a notorious hatha addict and a drunk.” “The heir to the White Isles was insane.” “The High Priestess Thalia is dead.”

  Thus the first day of the rumours. The friend of the friend had met a merchant who’d met a man who was himself drunk or hatha-addled or mad. If one person could at least name their informant, give some proof. There was that incident ten years ago, the siege of Telea, when the Immish had dressed up that poor young girl, claimed she was the ringleader’s daughter, killed her. The last King of Tarboran died two hundred years ago, and still people appeared claiming to be his heir. These strange bizarre things. Impossible to conceive of, isn’t it, that a beautiful young girl of twenty who has lived her whole life in the confines of one building should run off with a glamorous young foreign king?

  The second day of the rumours, the Emperor and the High Lords his advisers met in council. The Emperor comes! The Emperor comes! Kneel for the Emperor, the Eternal Ruler of the Golden City of Sorlost! The crash of bronze doors opening and closing. The hard tread of guards’ feet.

  Orhan sat at the opposite end of the table to the Emperor.

  Hostile faces looking at him.