Blood of the Land

by Martin Davey

  Marin had heard other Seekers speaking of some King in the south with flames for eyes and a hammer that could crack the earth strapped to his back. He had thought it rumour and legend spoken by superstitious villagers who knew nothing of the world. Hearing the Mahrata speak of such a man, it was difficult not to believe every word coming from that delicate, rose-lipped mouth. And Retaj was right, the only way to escape the camp would be to join their quest before finding a moment to slip away. Perhaps it would be best to leave Retaj, too. It had been too long since Marin had walked the roads alone, given himself time to think. “The Paramin? I know nothing of him and little enough of the Keepers, but if you need some more men for your company...” He was stopped by a smile like a new dawn after the blackest of nights, the Mahrata’s eyes bright and full of goodness.

  “If only our journey were so simple, Marin.” The Mahrata shook her head, her hair shining in the sun, brushing her cheeks, gentle as a lover. “My journey is to meet the saviour of our people, if I fail then all is lost to the King. My people will die when so many of them have already died. If you are both to come with me, come with us, then you have to swear the oath.” She lifted a hand as though to forestall another ready agreement, her bare arms thin and pale. “And once the oath is sworn you will be bound to me completely, your life in my hands to do with as I will.”

  “And what if we decide we don’t want to be bound to you, unlikely as that is?” Retaj asked.

  This time it was Areen who answered, his nose swollen and dry blood staining his nostrils. “Then you’ll be allowed to travel alone as freely as the others who have refused the Mahrata’s offer.”

  “And this Paramin...” Retaj stalled.

  “Enough of this, my lady.” Darl spread his big hands wide, “Haven’t we wasted enough time with these? The fighter is old and weak and shrieks like a woman when he sleeps. And the other is feeble and lies like a Barrowman.”

  Events were getting out of hand. Marin had sworn and broken more than a few oaths in his time on the road since he had fled the City of the Gods. “You can have faith in me, my lady. Once I take up your cause you will never have reason to doubt me.”

  “Let us hope so, Marin. Let us hope so. For all our sakes.”

  A long pause with the wind wisping through the camp, smoke drifting and canvas rippling, More of the Mahrata’s men had come from their shelters to watch their leader greeting the new arrivals, Marin noticed a few Marshmen with their bright clothes and wickedly curved swords.

  “And I, my lady.” Retaj hurried. “We Neusantians are renowned for our honesty and faithfulness, not only our furniture.” Marin had seen that smile before, usually it was saved for serving wenches in an inn when the night ahead promised to be long and dark and cold. Marin somehow doubted the Mahrata was going to be collapsing into a fit of girlish giggles anytime soon.

  The Mahrata looked at Retaj a long moment, her hair hanging loose over slender and girlish shoulders. A noise of leather and steel behind them and Marin turned to see two men approaching, both big, one dark with dark eyes and the other with his hair shaved to a stubble that looked rough and hard enough to grate cheese. Both men adjusted belts, pulled on gloves and checked swords as they hurried down the slope, steps heavy and metal chinking.

  “So easily you easterners declare your devotion. Any wonder that your gods found you on your knees when they came from the skies.” The words were spoken almost fondly, like a parent speaking of the foibles of a favoured child. She turned away, her arms delicate by her side, fingers outstretched. “The fighting man first. Gish and Saluman watch the talker.” Orders so easily given by a woman so young. Nobody hesitated in following her orders, least of all Marin, who followed her back to her tent flanked on either side by Areen and Darl.

  He wondered how he hadn’t managed to smell the perfumes before—he hadn’t been all that far from the tent, but as he neared the red canvas, pungent smells assaulted his nose. Jasmine. Vanilla. Summerbloom. And then other, more unfamiliar smells, all rolling out of the tent like clouds swept before a roiling wind.

  The mixture of the smells and the sight of the Mahrata’s ankle and swelling hip as she stepped into the tent made Marin pause, light headed with need. A large hand on his shoulder was enough to stir him back into motion and he followed the Mahrata into the shadowy depths.

  It took some moments for his eyes to adjust to the gloom after the glare of the morning. Shadows, darker shadows and black objects scattered about coming into focus like scattered memories of a dream on waking. A pit in the centre of the floor, cold ashes piled like dead leaves ready for burning, a simple narrow cot in a shadowy corner with only a single thin green sheet draped over it, a brown chest with four painted beakers balanced precariously on it, each one holding a quart of red wine.

  “What pains you so, Marin?”

  Marin stopped looking about the tent and back to the Mahrata. Every time he looked at her, he wondered that he could ever look away again. Standing in the confines of the tent, the passion in her eyes was enough to make his throat tighten. “Pains me?” It was difficult to speak. “I don’t understand.”

  The Mahrata smiled, her eyes bright even in the shadows. “Pain? Everybody understands pain. Our world is full of pain. Every country we visit, every city, every town, every village we go to we see pain around every corner, whether our own or somebody else’s. But your pain, Marin...” again she reached out to touch his cheek, her hand colder now, like a river in winter. “Where does the hurt I see in your eyes come from?”

  A dark forest with long fingered hands gripping black trunks, empty eyes watching as his god awaited him in a shadowy grove. Marin shrugged and swallowed. “Pain is everywhere, as you say. Need mine be any different to any others?”

  A long silence as the Mahrata looked up at him, her brow creased with sympathy. “Who is the Paramin, Marin?”

  “He’s the one making all that noise up there in the mountains.” He was starting to feel nauseous standing in the tent with the heady mix of perfumes and other smells swirling about him. He ignored the faint stirring behind him, a shuffle of leather and an eager feeling of the pommel of a sword. Probably Areen, he would be eager to avenge the broken nose.

  “That is your knowledge of the Paramin?” No anger in the Mahrata’s voice, only sympathy.

  Marin could only nod, resisting the urge to shrug. He felt vomit roiling in his stomach. He wanted swear the oath and be out, back into the fresh air. He would swear an oath to the Nameless One himself if it meant he could be away. The thought of being forced to bend over and spew the contents of his stomach over the Mahrata’s bare feet was one indignity too many for one day. “The oath?” he said. Thirty years on the road had taught him words were cheap and easy, an oath taken no different to promises to a lover or a travelling companion.

  “So eager.” The Mahrata shook her head, though her smile still shone. “So eager to give your life to another, so eager to abandon your gods, so eager to give your life to a god you have no knowledge of. Why is that Marin? Why would any man be so willing to betray his beliefs?”

  The woman was hurting his head. Sacrifice his beliefs? There was only one belief. The gods had come to the world of man and saved man from himself. The gods were still there, dwelling in the city they had fashioned from the home of the Nameless One. How could any man sacrifice the belief even if he wished to? And she seemed to hold so much faith in this oath of hers. But then Marin would be swearing no oath to any Paramin or whatever it was beating those drums in the mountains, he knew the oath he swore in his heart would be to the Mahrata and, as he looked at her, equal parts frail young woman and challenging intelligent beauty, he knew he could never fail her. She had a smile, a face, a presence that no man could betray. Even Retaj with his easy smiles and easy lies could never escape such a woman.

  Oaths and gods and Paramin, Marin knew that after all his running he believed only that which he could see and touch and feel. “I have no beliefs to betray, my lady.”
For so long Marin had spoken nothing but lies or half-truths, it felt strange speaking something he knew only for truth. “But I know as sure as I know myself that I would never betray you or hinder your quest for your Paramin and I would be willing to take the oath on that.”

  A long searching look from the Mahrata. She wouldn’t even have been born when Marin first fled the vengeance of his gods and yet he found it difficult not to squirm under the scrutiny of those eyes of brown and copper and gold. And then, two simple words, “Take him,” was all she said. And only then was Marin aware of the shouting outside, Retaj’s voice, high and shrill. The sound of fighting, the dull thud of fist on flesh, the gasp of a man crying out in pain. And a single name called out twice, “Marin! Marin!”

  Shocking pain as Marin felt something hard kick the backs of his legs and he fell to his knees, his hands still bound together as though he prayed to Keeper Martuk for forgiveness.

  A large fist grabbed a handful of his hair, tight enough to make him wish he hadn’t clung to his vanity and shaved all his thinning hair off. Still his eyes never left the Mahrata’s.

  And still her eyes never left his. Even when the thick, short-handled knife gleamed bright in the gloom of the tent.

  Marin saw the painted beaker in the Mahrata’s hand. Not a quart of red wine, after all.

  Areen held the knife. Marin recognized the black leather strips tied around his wrist, the tendons in the arm stark. Fear. Marin struggled against Areen’s grip, tried to pull his head away, his hair tearing from his scalp. Felt his back arched over a knee pushed into his back. “The oath!” He shouted, loud in the tent. “The oath, I’ll take the oath!”

  “There is only one oath to the Paramin.” The Mahrata’s voice was sad as she knelt before him, painted swirls decorating the beaker in her hand, this one empty. “The oath of blood.” Her face had fallen into shadow.

  “Marin!” The sound of screams and fighting outside the tent. “Marin!”

  Retaj’s screams and shouts lent Marin new strength and he thrashed and lashed out against the vice-like arms. And then the knife sliced across his throat in one smooth motion, so sharp that Marin even had time to wonder that the grip in his hair was more painful than the blade slicing his flesh.

  And as he watched his life’s blood gushing into the Mahrata’s beaker, sloshing over her hands and his vision faded into darkness, he even then had time to think how beautiful she was as she smiled at him, her brow creased in sympathy.

  CHAPTER 12

  Landros was living another man’s life. Gone were the days when he woke to the smell of Pascal’s sweat-sodden feet in his face, the sound of fat Bertha arguing in the corridor with her drunken husband. Gone were the days when he could blindly obey orders and let Dorian wonder the purposes of the Clerks and the gods. Gone were the days when he felt small and dirty and ignorant.

  Was it so wrong that he revelled in his new station in life? So wrong that he wandered the rooms in his new house touching the furniture and trying to ignore the reminders that it had all once been Dorian’s? So wrong that he stroked the breast of his new jacket as he walked the streets of Katrinamal with a straight back, no longer ashamed to meet the eyes of people blessed in the eyes of the Five?

  But then, despite all the pleasures of his new station, it seemed nothing came without a price; wherever there was a new house, there was an old friend looking for a new home, wherever there was a world full of bright new possibilities, there was a dead friend lurking in every shadowy corner.

  Landros pulled up his collar and stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his soft new coat. There had been a time when he loved the nights in Katrinamal. The smell of stale beer heavy in the air, the drifting perfumes of Mother Jendra’s house wafting on the breeze, the shouts, the laughter, the danger. That had been before Feren. Now that the dead walked the world, darkness and danger had lost all their appeal. Every shadowy figure, every hunched shape appearing out of the gloom might turn out to be Feren. Landros shivered and made his way toward his mother’s house. Even though she would be sitting in her rocking chair, swearing and arguing with herself, Landros still felt the need to show her his new coat, his new haircut, his new station in life. Why was that? Would she even notice the change in him? Would she even recognize him at all?

  Squeak...creak...squeak....

  He cleared his throat, loosened his collar and hurried on.

  Regent Street was narrow, the three-storey houses leaning overhead so close they almost touched, chaste lovers whispering sweet nothings to one another as Landros and the rest of the night life of Katrinamal passed below. It was getting to be the time of night when the laughter and the jokes began to dissipate into the air, and the arguments and the threats became the songs of the night. Dogs, chickens and cats scampered about the garbage gathered in the shadows; all of them thin, all of them wary of the occasional boot aimed in their direction.

  Landros ignored them all and hurried on, eyes downcast as he imagined Feren watching him from every window, from every gloomy doorway.

  Squeak...creak...squeak...

  “Landros! Landros!” A voice he recognized. He ignored it and strode on.

  A woman was crying in the doorway of a dark shop, her hair awry, thick make-up streaking her cheeks as she watched two men scuffling in the middle of the road. It was a poor fight, looking more like an over-energetic cuddle than proper combat. Landros briefly wondered if it was his responsibility as Captain of the Watch to step in.

  “Landros!” Torra running after him. Landros waited and watched the two fighters rolling in the dirt for a moment more. They could be a while longer; the most interesting thing about the fight was they were perilously close to rolling into a pile of horse shit heaped between them and the sobbing drunken woman.

  “Landros.” A hand landed on his shoulder.

  Torra looked as clean and well-groomed as ever. He was the kind of a man who could stick his hands in a cold bucket of water, run them through his hair and suddenly look like he had been to the finest barber in the City of the Gods. It was a talent that had never ceased to annoy Landros. “What is it, Torra? I was just—“

  “Come and join us, Landros.” Torra’s eyes were hooded in the darkness of the night. They gave him the dangerous look that seemed to drive all the girls at the Mother’s house crazy. “I fancy you could do with a drink.” He finally let go of Landros’s shoulder.

  Landros looked back down Regent’s Street; a dark figure leaned against a wet wall, playing with something in his hand. It looked like he was watching them. “I don’t have time, Torra. I have to—“

  Torra nodded his head back to Potter’s Street. “We’re all in the Fiddlers Tree. Well, me, Dorian and Pascal are. Elian saw you, wondered if you might want to join us. Share in a drink to Feren’s memory.”

  Landros stopped at the mention of Elian’s name. A strange jealousy rose within him. It seemed such a petty emotion after the death of Feren, but no pettier than his pleasure in his new clothes and his new house. Weren’t all emotions petty after the death of a loved one?

  How quickly the world moved on after such a death. Were people really so insignificant? Landros suddenly felt as though he did need that drink.

  The Fiddler’s Tree was a small inn, no more than ten rooms upstairs and two bars downstairs. It was old and damp with a perennial stink of beer and other indeterminate things clinging to its walls and floors. The windows were fastened shut through fear they may fall out if opened and thick smoke hung heavily over the crowd like a dark conscience.

  Torra led Landros through the crowd, sliding sideways to slip through narrow gaps between waving arms, fat bellies, heaving breasts, hands holding sloshing tankards of beer, sharp corners of precariously balanced tables. Their feet made strange sucking noises as they walked, barely heard under the riot of noise that always accompanies a large crowd with a plentiful supply of alcohol.

  It was rare enough for a man to find a seat in the Fiddler’s Tree, either at one of
the wobbly, scratched tables in the middle of the room, or at the dark wooden benches lining the walls, but Dorian had managed to find space enough for a seat on the bench with Pascal squeezed against him. Elian wasn’t there and Landros fought against the urge to scan the room for her.

  It wasn’t difficult to see how Dorian had managed to secure a seat; the way he slumped against the wall, his eyes glazed, his thin hair awry and falling across his forehead, Landros guessed he had been there since Otto had opened his doors that morning. Pascal looked like he hadn’t been long behind him; although it didn’t take quite as many drinks for Pascal to take to leaning on shoulders and talking drivel.

  “Landros!” Dorian shouted him over as he broke through the crowd. Landros could smell the beer on his Captain’s—former Captain’s breath, smell the smoke on his clothes. Two bloodied red scratches marked Dorian’s cheek from the corner of an eye to below his cheekbone. “Or should it be Captain Landros?”

  Landros ignored the question. He didn’t like to see his friend look so old. “Where did you get those?”

  Dorian ran two fingers along the scratches as though he had forgotten they were there. “These? A little gift from a grieving mother.”

  “Yes. Well.” Torra clapped his hands together. “You want a drink Landros? I’ll get you a drink.” And without waiting for an answer he elbowed his way back into the heaving mass of humanity.

  “You went to see Feren’s mother? I thought I’d gone there to save you the bother.”

  “Bother, Landros? Is that’s what it was?”

  “That’s not really what I meant.” Explaining himself again. He pointed again to the scratches. “It’s just what Elin said about you; I didn’t think you’d be a person she really wanted to see any time soon.” He glanced over his shoulder, he needed to be free, but the thought of fighting his way back through the crowd filled him with lethargy. And Elian was somewhere in the inn. “I saw the hurt in her eyes when she spoke of you.” Landros had to remind himself not to say Dorian’s name. All his life he had known him as Captain; how could he now start calling him Dorian?