The Shadow of Tyr

by Glenda Larke

  He chatted with the legionnaires who boarded the barge with the easy camaraderie of a soldier speaking to other soldiers. When the officer asked about Ligea, Gevenan identified her as his pallet companion from a Nitidian brothel, and they both grinned knowingly. Barge travel could be stultifying. The officer didn’t even bother to check her palms, or look at the supposed recruits, and he waived the usual barge tax because Gevenan was on Exaltarchy business. The string of barges moved on to the main city docks.

  Ligea turned to say goodbye to Gevenan as the gangplank was being put in place. ‘Good luck,’ she said. Her voice was hoarse, and the words almost stuck in her throat.

  He grinned at her. ‘I’m looking forward to this. Rolling up at the city barracks with two thousand totally unexpected, supposedly raw recruits is going to throw every officer in Tyr, not to mention every lictor and minor military official, into a paroxysm of bad temper, blame and much scouring of records, to find out just why no one knew anything about it. The only one who will come out smelling of roses is me, and I shall be righteously indignant at not having been greeted with the thanks due for delivering a bunch of recruits the Exaltarch has been begging for.’

  ‘Watch for my signal tomorrow morning, that’s all I ask.’

  But it wasn’t all, not really. She wanted to say: Don’t get yourself killed. Don’t be one of the deaths to lie at my door.

  In the end, she walked away with the words unsaid. To tell a man like Gevenan that you cared what happened to him was not so easy, not when the cynic lurked, ever-present, in his eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ligea went first to find the Reviarch, Javenid Baradas.

  When she arrived at his counting house, it was still early morning, but that made no difference to the Reviarch. He was already at work. Ligea told the Assorian slave who opened the front door to the counting house to tell the Reviarch that a client of Arcadim wanted to see him urgently. The slave exuded suspicion and left her to wait in the entry hall under the watchful eye of another slave, but the Reviarch hustled in a moment later full of apologies for the delay, bowing deeply to display his scalp tattoo.

  Yes, you know exactly who I am, you cunning old bird…

  Only when she was seated in his private office, with its massive ironwood chest taking pride of place in the centre of the room, did he utter her name. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Magoria Ligea,’ he said as he took the seat opposite her. An Assorian woman stood motionless behind his chair. ‘As you can see, I have asked one of my household to be present, as it is not proper for me to be alone with a lady. She is my daughter. She does not speak Tyranian.’

  Ligea inclined her head towards the nameless woman and laid her sword, still wrapped, across her knees. ‘I wish I could say it is a pleasure to meet you, Reviarch. Unfortunately, I feel our connection has been a mixed blessing.’

  He ran his fingers down a row of pearls in his beard. ‘I am not sure I know what you mean, Domina.’

  ‘At least once you passed information about me, without Arcadim’s knowledge, on to the Magister Officii. I suspect you have done it several times.’

  He stilled. ‘I cannot imagine what has brought you to that conclusion.’

  ‘If you wish to deny it, I am willing to listen. I assume, however, that you—as an Assorian Reviarch—have access to the wealth of information your guild has accumulated over the years. I am guessing that you know I can tell the truth from a lie.’

  He was silent for a long moment. Then he said quietly, ‘I am responsible for my people and their wealth. When my house is threatened on both sides, I have always found it advantageous to sit in the middle.’

  Without looking at him, she unwrapped her sword and fingered the hilt. ‘Today you make a choice on which side of the house you will sit, Reviarch. By tomorrow night I intend to be the new Exaltarch.’

  ‘You? Yourself?’ He sounded more intrigued than disbelieving. ‘I did wonder who you intended to put on the Exaltarch’s seat. I thought you’d choose a scion of one of the highborn families. A woman will not be easily accepted let alone one of foreign blood, no matter that she has citizenship.’

  ‘It is remarkable what is possible when one has power, Reviarch. I shall want the support of the Assorian moneymasters, both here and elsewhere. Without you all, I have no chance to build something on the ruins of the Exaltarchy. For that reason, I want none of your people, nor your property, harmed in the coming battle—which is why I am sitting here, telling you what is about to happen. I have given instructions to my forces that this enclave is not to be entered, and that no Assorian is to be harmed, but we both know that in the midst of a battle, it is also best not to tempt fate. For that reason, I suggest you warn your people to stay indoors for the next two days. Possibly longer.’

  ‘I am grateful. My people will be grateful.’

  She raised her eyes to fix her gaze on his face. ‘But, as you can imagine, it also leaves me with a problem. How can I be sure that, the moment I leave this room, you don’t send a messenger to Rathrox Ligatan or the Exaltarch, telling them the city is about to be attacked? Even as I sit here, I am aware of your ambivalence. I cannot trust you.’

  ‘If it is any reassurance, I never passed anything on to the Magister in time for him to do you harm.’

  Her gaze hardened with rage. ‘My son and I were almost killed passing the boom in the river four years ago. It was sheer luck that we escaped when we did. We were not scheduled to leave till the following morning, and had we waited, we would have been trapped because you chose to tell the Magister we were there. Or so I believe. I would be pleased to hear differently.’

  There was another long pause, then he admitted, ‘I was informed you were aboard the ship and that someone else was looking for legionnaires to stop you. I assumed you knew that, and would leave immediately. I would not otherwise have contacted Ligatan. I also made the assumption your Magor abilities would ensure your survival, as indeed they did. Magoria, I was merely protecting both sides of my house. If I had not reported what I heard about you from time to time, Rathrox would have assumed I was helping you, especially once he learned the woman he was hunting was Ligea Gayed. He would never have believed that no hint of your activities ever reached the ears of Assorian moneymasters. I feared for Arcadim. He could have been tortured to reveal all he knew. That would not have helped you.’

  Ligea curled her left hand around the hilt of her sword, her cabochon slipping into the hollow there. The translucent blade glowed. ‘I think we have both been luckier than we deserve, Reviarch.’ Her gaze did not waver from his face. ‘This does not quite solve my present problem, though. I do not intend to leave the outcome to luck.’ She rested the tip of the blade on the edge of the chest.

  He stared at it and licked dry lips. ‘I could give you my promise. And you know the truth when you hear it.’

  ‘Yes, but could I be certain that you would not change your mind once you have thought things over? I am afraid I must do more than just rely on your word.’ A wisp of smoke spiralled up from the sword tip. The wood beneath was beginning to scorch.

  The Reviarch’s daughter gasped, her eyes as round as an owl’s.

  ‘Ah.’ Javenid took a deep breath, but his eyes did not leave the spot where blade and wood met. ‘You can be insulting.’

  ‘Yes. But never naive.’ The colour in the blade brightened, and the smell of burning wood filled the air.

  He stared, mesmerised. His daughter moved restlessly, her hands fidgeting with her shawl, her expression mirroring her distress. The mark on the chest was small, but already the length of a fingernail deep.

  He said, a little unsteadily, ‘So, doubtless you have a solution to this impasse?’

  The curl of smoke thickened. ‘Indeed I have. You have one son, I believe. A lad of twelve. He comes with me, to ensure your good behaviour.’

  The Reviarch wrenched his gaze from the chest to her face. His anguish was sudden and deeply felt.

  ‘Never fea
r, I will keep him safe. I have no wish to gain your enmity.’

  Javenid was silent.

  She was relentless and pushed her sword a shade deeper into the ironwood. ‘If you send any hint of information to Rathrox or the Exaltarch about what is going to happen in the next twenty-four hours, I will know about it, I will probably lose this battle—and you will never see your son again.’ See what it feels like to have your child under threat, old man?

  ‘And if I keep my silence and you lose anyway?’ he asked in a whisper, his arrogance reduced to a father’s focus on what really mattered.

  She felt a pang of sympathy for him, and killed it.

  ‘What will happen to him then?’ he persisted.

  ‘He will be returned to you, safe and sound. My word on it.’ She pulled her sword out of the wood and rested it across her knees once more. The wood continued to smoulder. ‘Now send a slave to ask your son to come here, dressed for a walk. When he arrives, tell him nothing except that he is to go with me and do as I ask. Address your slave and your son only in Tyranian so that I might understand.’ Calmly she reached for the water carafe on a side table and poured a little into the smoking gouge she had made in his most precious family treasure.

  Arcadim Asenius hated the sound of the warning bell. The old Assorian slave who lived across the road in the warehouse, rang it to signal he was about to send someone through the tunnel, someone who needed to use an unobtrusive entrance to the Asenius Counting House, and every time Arcadim heard its muffled clang from the cellar, he dreaded that the visitor would be Ligea Gayed again.

  Arcadim hated thinking about her. It reminded him how precarious his very existence was, how fragile the safety of his family, how transitory their wealth if Rathrox Ligatan smelled a whiff of his treachery. No sooner did he hear from Ligea than Arcadim’s stomach would begin to roil.

  God of my fathers, please don’t let it be her today…

  He hurried down to open his entrance to the tunnel. And was shocked when he realised it was not only Ligea, but that Ishakim Baradas was with her. The Reviarch’s only son. He couldn’t think of any scenario that would account for that unlikely event. And the boy’s face was a picture of sullen puzzlement. He had no idea what he was doing here, either.

  ‘I believe you know Ishakim?’ Ligea asked, as though she were introducing a friend to the host at some highborn’s feast. ‘The Reviarch wishes him to be kept safe for the next two days, but doesn’t want to know where the lad is. Could you keep him in your household?’

  Arcadim blinked, a stream of thoughts rushing through his head as he tried to make sense of that request. And nothing he came up with was at all comforting. He’d had no idea that the Reviarch and Ligea had ever met, let alone that he trusted her enough to put his son’s safety in her hands.

  Great God in heaven, what did I ever do to deserve this? Aloud, he said, unclenching his jaw, ‘Of course. Any member of the Reviarch’s family is more than welcome here. I shall have Reveba attend to it.’ He waved a hand at the stairs. ‘Ishakim,’ he said, ‘go on up and wait for me in the room at the top.’ The lad gave Ligea a considering look, then did as he was told. ‘What is this about?’ Arcadim asked as soon as Ishakim was out of earshot.

  ‘I will be attacking the city within the next twenty-four hours. No one should leave the house now, not for the next two days. If you and all your household stay inside, you will be safe enough. My men hope to keep the fighting away from the moneymasters’ enclave. And should you see anyone over the next day or so—including the Reviarch or anyone of his household—please refrain from mentioning Ishakim is here. And give that warning to your man on the other end of the tunnel as well. I am sure he recognised the boy.’

  His thoughts jumped to the only conclusion that seemed to make sense. She was afraid the Brotherhood would threaten Ishakim to find out if Javenid had any useful information. The sick feeling in his stomach began to spread. ‘You think Ishakim is in danger.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Javenid is elderly, and he has but one son. He would do anything to save the lad, and that’s the kind of thing the Brotherhood would know.’

  ‘It is indeed,’ she said with the ghost of a smile.

  He was going to get nothing more out of her, he knew. ‘What else do you want?’ he asked, and knew he sounded ungracious. He was trying to hide his fear from her, knowing all the while it was useless. She read him as easily as a scroll. You couldn’t hide secrets from Ligea. She had eyes that could bore to the back of your skull.

  ‘I need to wash,’ she said. ‘I want that parcel I sent to you last month; it has the clothing I want to wear in it. And then I want a litter. Do you have your own?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Then I had better leave from across the street. You can order one for me. Now show me where I can wash.’

  ‘I’ll get Reveba,’ he said, his misery deep enough to drown in, and turned towards the stairs.

  He saw her again after she had changed. She was wearing a robe of white, and she had applied something to the skin of her face. It didn’t hide the way her scar puckered on her cheek, but the damage was less obvious. Her sword was carried in a jewelled baldric. She also wore a wig, which he had never seen her do before. An abundance of long golden hair fell over her shoulders in curling waves. That alone changed her appearance dramatically, and he scarcely recognised her. No one would ever call her beautiful, not since her face had been ruined, but he had to acknowledge that she could still look imposing.

  She flung a large shawl over her head and shoulders, covering most of her upper body and face. ‘Is the litter ready?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘It’s waiting for you at the front of the warehouse across the street.’

  ‘Then I shall go. When you see me again, you will be the new Exaltarch’s moneymaster.’

  ‘But—I don’t understand. Who will the new Exaltarch be?’

  She didn’t answer. Sick to the stomach, he took her down to the tunnel and she disappeared into its darkness. As he closed up the tunnel entrance, disguising it as usual behind a large banner covered in writings from the scriptures of Assor, he was assailed with doubts. Oh, God, what if she loses? I won’t be the new Exaltarch’s moneymaster. I’ll be the old Exaltarch’s gate decoration.

  And then he began to wonder.

  The new Exaltarch’s moneymaster. She couldn’t mean—no, of course she couldn’t. There had never been a woman holding power in Tyrans. It didn’t happen.

  Oh, God, tell me she didn’t mean that…

  His stomach churned and he dashed up the stairs in the direction of the lavatory.

  I am only one person. It took Temellin and fifty Magoroth to bring down the Tyranian forces in Kardiastan. What can one Magor do here? Am I mad?

  She could die today. So easily.

  She could fail. She could end her life in the Brotherhood’s torture rooms. All they had to do was remove her gem…

  Why did I ever start?

  By the time the litter reached the naval building on the docks, it was already midmorning. She thought of her men, crouched at the top of the aqueduct, trying to snatch some sleep. They had to stay there until the morning of the next day. Please let Arrant be safe. Please let them all be safe. And with that last thought, she closed off her doubts, buried them deep where they would not intrude. There was no longer a place for second thoughts now.

  She bade the litter bearers wait for her and, still largely concealed by her shawl, mounted the marble steps of the naval building. Two guards stood at the top of the stairs at the open doors, and as she approached, they swung their spears across to halt her entry.

  Under the cover of the shawl, she gripped her sword hilt and called up the power of her blade. One of the huge wooden doors burst into flames at the top. She made the fire more inaccessible than dangerous; the flames burned nothing more than the paint, but she configured them so that they weren’t easily extinguished, either. The guards gaped, horrified
. One whipped off his ceremonial cloak and tried to batter the flames with it, but the door was too tall. Ligea slipped past, unnoticed, into the interior of the building.

  More military men came running, but it was the fire that had their attention, not the woman wrapped in a shawl. She cast around with her senses until she pinpointed the location of the man she was seeking. At his door she discarded her shawl, called more colour into her sword and wrapped herself in its golden glow. Anything to blur her looks and deceive the senses. She enhanced her hearing to listen for a moment before she stepped inside.

  Seamaster Mescades was standing at a table, turning a piece of beaten copper over and over in his hands. A naval officer was standing in front of him, giving a report on the efficacy of copper cladding on ramming vessels. They both turned to look at her as she entered. Their initial surprise blossomed into amazement and then a mixture of reverent awe, appalled fear—and disbelief. And the disbelieving one was the seamaster.

  Ligea gave them no time for thought. She gestured at the naval officer and pointed, sending a trail of golden bubbles of light across the room to the door. Her meaning was clear. He bowed his head and clasped his fist to his breast in a gesture of submission. ‘Goddess,’ he whispered, and left the room. Without moving, Ligea used a wind to close the door behind him with a slam. ‘You and the Legate Valorian were informed that a man of war must choose his sides with care,’ she said, modulating her voice to a lower, more sensual register. As she spoke, she created the gentlest of breezes around herself. Her hair swirled in the blur of a golden haze, her robe fluttered. ‘You were informed that a time would arrive when you would need to reconsider your loyalty.’

  The seamaster finally managed to react. He laid the copper down. His hand was remarkably steady. ‘The Magister told Legate Valorian and me that the Oracle was a fraud,’ he said. ‘That the words were spoken by a Kardi numen, with certain magic abilities, who posed as the Oracle.’

  Ligea smiled. ‘Were you convinced?’