The Shadow of Tyr

by Glenda Larke

  Arrant returned to his rooms.

  He sat for a while, looking at the chest on the floor. Then he knelt, unlatched it and extracted the clothes hidden at the bottom under his best wraps: a servant boy’s tunic with the imperial insignia stamped around the hem, a servant’s cap, a pair of rough-made sandals, a cheap leather coin-pouch. Apart from the insignia, the outfit was not unlike the garb he had worn as a younger child, and he felt more comfortable wearing it than the silk wraps the palace servants laid out for him every morning.

  ‘It’s silly,’ he’d told Tarran once, ‘but it’s the servants who want me to dress in the clothes left behind by Bator Korbus and those who lived here. I don’t care what I wear, and I don’t think Ligea does, either. And yet we both end up wearing all this fancy stuff.’

  Now, four years later, he found himself obscurely ashamed to find how effortlessly he had accepted what was given to him, no matter whether it was service, or unearned respect, or finely woven garments. It was so easy to make use of the servants’ willingness to obey without question, to play on the fear his cabochon and his reputation engendered. Easy to be an arrogant little bastard.

  That was how he had obtained the clothes, a year earlier. He had simply demanded them, without giving a reason. At first, he’d had no ulterior motive. He’d worn them around the palace just to shock the palace staff, but there was no point in doing that more than once or twice. Gradually the idea had grown on him that they would make a good disguise. A way of leaving the palace, of exploring the city.

  The problem would be to pass through the gates. Earlier, as a young boy exploring his environs, he’d discovered a small kitchen entrance used only by the most menial of servants. It was guarded by an old man called Cosamini, who was nearly blind. Better still, it was not difficult for Arrant to reach that entry unremarked via the Exaltarch’s personal garden and a gardener’s passageway through to the kitchen garden, and hence to where Cosamini sat, his sole job to make sure that no one except servants on legitimate business came and went.

  When Arrant put on the servant’s tunic and jammed all his hair under the cap, he was no longer the son of the Exaltarch. He was just Urban, a nondescript fellow, one of hundreds who worked in the palace, who no one ever bothered to look at properly, especially if he timed his coming and going to coincide with the times of day when servants were at their busiest. Cosamini soon came to know Urban, the Dominus Arrant’s cup-bearer. The lad stopped by to chat every now and then, when there was no one else around. And once Cosamini knew him, Urban started leaving the palace, once or twice every ten days, supposedly to run messages. For whom, Cosamini never asked. It wasn’t his business.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Tarran? Tarran—are you there?

  Yet another call to Tarran went unheeded.

  Arrant worried. And sometimes, when Tarran did come, he arrived trembling in Arrant’s mind, unable to speak, his thoughts curled into a foetal ball that was a raw mass of hurting in Arrant’s head.

  Arrant found the best way he could help his brother was not to try to understand what was happening inside the Mirage, nor to ask about the Ravage that so scarred Tarran’s thoughts. The best thing he could do was provide a refuge where his brother could get away from the horror, where he could be.

  He tried again. Tarran?

  He wanted his brother to enjoy his clandestine outing; having escaped the confines of the palace, he was already heading across the Forum Publicum.

  One of these days, you are going to get caught, brother of mine, Tarran said. He sounded almost cheerful.

  Hey, good, I’m glad you’re here! Caught? Probably. Ligea will have a fit. She just lectured me about safety and stuff. But it’s worth it. By all that’s holy, I get so sick of the damn mausoleum of a palace.

  That kitchen guard must surely realise who you are one day.

  Arrant snorted. Nobles do not wear these kind of garments and half-blind guards do not look overly close at servant boys. Those are the sad facts of life, Tarran, and I intend to exploit them to the full! The fellow has never laid eyes on Dominus Arrant anyway. Cosamini doesn’t venture out of the nether regions, and the imperial princeling does not enter anything as mundane as the kitchen! He remembered with nostalgia the times he had spent in the cavernous warmth of the kitchen at the Stronghold, or the cosy country kitchen of First Farm, and wished with conscious futility that those times had never ended.

  What are you going to do today?

  I thought I might wander down to the wharves.

  How about buying a handful of deep-fried minnows on the way? I love the taste—

  Vortexdamn, Tarran, do you ever think of anything but my stomach?

  Well, I don’t have one of my own to think about.

  Yeah, and if I listened to you, I’d be as fat as a pregnant goat.

  Do you have money today?

  Luckily for you, old Arcadim pressed some coins into my hand last night at a banquet. And so did the Reviarch. They can have no idea how much I appreciate this Assorian custom of giving spending money to the children of the house when visiting. Although where either of them thought I was ever going to spend it beats me. Hey, will you quit trying to take over my feet!

  I thought of taking a shortcut through the Snarls.

  Arrant hesitated. I shouldn’t. It can be dangerous in there. He remembered his mother’s concern, her distaste for even mentioning Rathrox Ligatan by name. A childhood image insinuated itself into his thoughts: the spider who was the blackness at the centre of his web, long dark limbs manipulating the strands, the city dancing to his rule.

  Oh, come on. That’s the most interesting part of Tyr! The Mirage doesn’t have a city any more. The Ravage took it. And even when we did, it wasn’t like this.

  Guilt. Why did he always feel guilt when Tarran spoke of his life within the Mirage Makers?

  I’ll be with you, Tarran reassured him. Nothing will happen. It never does when I’m around, does it?

  Arrant capitulated, unable—as ever—to withstand his brother’s wheedling. Oh, all right then.

  But it felt wrong. And he was uneasy, even as he told himself there were plenty of people about; that it was daylight. Nothing was going to happen.

  The alleyways of the Snarls were crowded with houses, misshapen things so squashed together it seemed they squeezed their inhabitants out into the street: the poor and stateless, the old and weary, the freed slaves who had been thrown out of the only homes they had ever known once the Law had freed them.

  I like the smell, Tarran said. It’s interesting.

  What? Arrant found that hard to believe. The Snarls had its very own odour. Not dirt exactly, or even rotting rubbish. Ligea insisted on the cleanliness of all the city, and she had abolished the shame that had been the heart of the Snarls—the Cages. But still the place had an unwashed smell, like schoolboys at the end of the day, as if a certain level of grubbiness went hand in hand with poverty. Arrant wrinkled his nose.

  It was that time of the day when everyone seemed to be returning from the markets with their purchases. No one paid Arrant any attention except a beggar who kept pace at his side, whining, ‘Young sir, spare a coin—just a copper—’ The man hobbled along with the aid of a stick. Someone jostled him and he had to make a grab at Arrant to save himself. He smelled vile and Arrant thought he saw something rather loathsome crawling through the mat of his hair. He tried to shake the fellow off, but the taloned grip was a vice around his hand. ‘Just a few coppers, lad—’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Arrant said and fumbled at his pouch. The man took the proffered coin and vanished into the crowd. Arrant wiped his palm on his tunic.

  Squeamish? Tarran teased. Got too used to the princeling’s perfumes, you have.

  Oh, shut up, Tarran. You can’t tell me you enjoyed that encounter either.

  Believe me, he’s nothing compared to being gnawed by the Ravage.

  Arrant’s insides lurched like a drunk.

  Tarran apologised
. Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up. I come here to forget that sort of thing.

  Tarran, have you seen Temellin lately? Do you ever see him?

  No. He doesn’t come to the Shiver Barrens, and we can’t see into Kardiastan proper. Why do you ask?

  I want to know more about him. To know if he is all right. To know what sort of man he is.

  Tarran was distracted by the antics of two lads hitting an inflated bladder against a wall with flat pieces of wood. He swung Arrant’s head around to follow their progress. Hmm? Oh, well, I have told you lots of things about him from when he lived in the Mirage.

  Yes. But none of that is recent. And you never told me about the two of them, not really.

  Ligea and Temellin? Tarran was silent for a moment while Arrant threaded his way through a crowd gathered around a fishmonger’s stall. Then he said, Well, yes, that’s true. But, Arrant, there are some things you should not be told. What happened between your mother and father is private. In fact, you wouldn’t want to know. Truly.

  Arrant thought about that. Their courtship, their arguments, their loving. He shuddered. Goddess, no. I suppose not, he admitted. But what about now? I feel as if I don’t understand him. I don’t understand why he hasn’t asked for me sooner than this.

  He felt Tarran’s concern, but any empathy from his brother was also tinged with a Mirage Maker’s exasperation. Tarran didn’t understand why it worried Arrant so. Why he felt this awful need to be wanted.

  Well, Tarran said, we had Lesgath—one of Korden’s sons, just a bit older than you—in the Shiver Barrens recently, to get his sword. We asked him about what was happening in Madrinya. Everything is fine there now. You already know that the Tyranians have all gone, and that the Kardi people welcomed the Magor back, cheering in the streets when our father said he would rule as Mirager again. They are rebuilding the Pavilions, you know. That’s the Kardi version of a palace and senate and all those sorts of places, I guess. Everything is fine. I didn’t like him, though.

  Who, Temellin?

  Worm-brain! Lesgath. He may be almost the same age as you, but he’s not like you.

  Arrant stopped dead, without any volition on his part. Hey! he growled at Tarran. Will you stop taking over my body, you daft Mirage Maker?

  Look, over there. Cooked minnows. You were going to walk right past them!

  All right, all right. But, Tarran, leave my body alone. If you keep doing that sort of thing, I’m going to end up having a heart attack.

  All right. But it is fun…

  The longing in his tone sent Arrant hurrying to buy and eat the minnows; at least Tarran could enjoy the use of his tastebuds. A few minutes later, however, with a suddenness so characteristic of his comings and goings, Tarran slipped out of his mind.

  Just the thought of where his brother had gone made Arrant grow cold. How could Tarran bear it? What did he not say, about the way he suffered? What was it really like, the Ravage? He had asked Ligea once, and she had told him as best she could. He now knew the scar on her face had been put there by a Ravage creature. He knew Brand had pulled her out and his arm had been withered by the poisons in the Ravage ooze. He knew he had once become an essensa with Ligea in order to seek help to escape the Ravage. But he suspected that she hadn’t come anywhere close to telling him what it was really like.

  He had his Ravage dreams, of course, and they alone were enough to tell him he didn’t ever want to meet those creatures face to face. I don’t have that kind of courage. I’m glad I’ll never see the Ravage.

  He reached the last of the alleyways and emerged once more onto a main thoroughfare that headed down to the wharves. As he neared the first of the docks, he realised people were hurrying in one direction as if there was something special to see at the dockside. He was about to ask someone what was going on, when he was stayed by a voice in his ear. ‘Lad, wait a moment.’

  He turned to find a large Tyranian man grinning at him. ‘Sweet hells, lad—you’re a tough one to catch. I’ve been trailing you halfway through the Snarls!’ He held out a coin-pouch and waggled it. ‘This is yours, I believe?’ Blue eyes twinkled in a face that looked as though it had been used as a battering ram at least once, the kind of face that indicated its owner had lived a very full life. He did have a nice smile, though, Arrant decided, and his voice was pleasantly mellow with the faint tinge of a country accent. Still, Arrant knew enough to know that you didn’t trust someone just because they had a pleasant smile.

  Then he recognised the pouch and his eyes widened as his hand groped at his belt where it should have been hanging. ‘Why—yes, yes.’

  ‘It was after you bought the minnows; you didn’t tuck it away properly and someone took advantage of your carelessness.’ The man showed him the cut ends of the thong. ‘Luckily for you, I happened to see what was going on and caught up with the thief.’ He gave him back the pouch. ‘He’ll think twice about doing something similar again, the thieving bastard.’

  Arrant mumbled an embarrassed thanks and, while he checked to see that the contents were still there, considered briefly whether he should offer the man a coin as reward. No, he decided. The fellow was too well dressed to be in need of money, and he might be offended if he were offered any.

  The man was already distracted, looking around at the hurrying crowd. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Arrant admitted.

  ‘There’s a ship in, I think. Must be a vessel out of the ordinary, though, for there to be a ruckus like this. Want to go and have a look?’ He turned without waiting to see if Arrant was going to follow.

  Arrant was intrigued enough to hurry after him, but soon lost him in the crowd. Two large galleys were manoeuvring their way into the docks. They weren’t Tyranian, but that was hardly enough to interest the crowd that was gathering. It was more the general appearance of the first of the ships. The ornate figurehead on the prow, carved and painted, scowled arrogantly at the crowd gathering on the wharf. The face was repeated on the red-painted sails of tightly woven reeds, now being lowered and stowed. A colourful banner flew over the stern, and both vessels had standards tied to the mast.

  Arrant squeezed to the front of the row of people lining the wharf, only to realise a moment or two later that the man who had recovered his purse was standing at his shoulder.

  ‘Ocrastes’ blessings,’ the man murmured, ‘I haven’t seen one of those ships for years!’ He sounded bemused. ‘That’s an Altani Delta vessel. They used to ply the Altani coast…’ He shrugged. ‘Impressive ships, aren’t they? The figurehead represents the river god—Kaliamus.’

  Childhood memories came slipping back: the all-pervading smell of water, the man his mother had liked so much, water and greenery meshed in unexpected combinations, flat-bottomed boats poling through water channels so narrow you could touch the reeds on either side. He had been used to Tyrans, where the desert-season was long and hot, and grey-green vegetation battled the dry sweep of winds for half a year. Altan had a brightness to it: blue skies reflected in water; greens of a vividness he had never seen before in nature. He hadn’t liked it. To him, it had appeared false, exaggerated—like one of the Tyranian port ladies with their red lips, blushing cheeks and blue eyelids.

  ‘I spent two summers there once,’ the man added. ‘With the legions.’

  ‘You were a legionnaire?’

  He nodded. ‘Under the old Exaltarch, yes. I was an officer, once. But I just go by the name of Thracius these days. Thracius Macellian, originally from Corbussia.’ He stood a little straighter, his pride in his service obvious. ‘Ever thought of joining the legions, lad? It’s a fine life!’ He indicated Arrant’s palace tunic with a wave of his hand. ‘Better than a servant’s any day. Bowing and scraping and fetching—that’s no life for a boy with ambition.’

  ‘I don’t have any ambition.’

  ‘No? Then you ought to have. What’s your name?’

  ‘Urban. And if I were to join the army, I’d probably still be a se
rvant. I don’t s’pose many ex-slaves end up as officers.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe not. Well now, will you look at that?’ The wind had caught the banner at the stern of the first vessel, unfurling its patterning on the breeze. ‘Do you know what the symbols on that banner mean?’ He didn’t wait for Arrant to answer. ‘The sheathed sword says the ships come in peace. The tied bundle of reeds, that’s the symbol of the Altani rebels. The third symbol, that’s the papyrus plant. That’s more interesting. It’s the symbol for a messenger, or an envoy. It means that whoever is in that first ship comes with the status to act on behalf of the ruler. This is a very important man in Altan, whoever he is.’

  Arrant hid a grin. Thracius took for granted that the envoy would be male, the kind of assumption that always annoyed Ligea, even though it was usually—always?—correct. Goddessdamn, not even having a woman as an Exaltarch seems to change the way people think about things like that.

  ‘Never did like the sea much, myself,’ Thracius said. ‘I like the paveway under my shoes. Or under my horse’s hooves, better still.’

  He chatted on as they watched the vessels dock. The gangplank was run out and port authorities hurried up and onto the deck. ‘Fees to be paid,’ he told Arrant, ‘and formalities to be observed. I hear the new Exaltarch makes foreign vessels pay through the nose. Says it’s to help the competitiveness of our own merchant navy, but I think it’s more to put money in her coffers. You can’t do away with slavery and expect taxes to remain as they were!’

  Arrant flushed. It was difficult to listen to his mother being so casually maligned and be unable to do a thing about it.

  ‘Ah, listen to me, then!’ Thracius continued amiably. ‘You can’t possibly be interested in all this. Sorry, lad. It’s just that you’re the same age as my nephew back home. Miss the boy. Used to tell him all manner of stories about my army days. Was teaching him to fight. With a sword. Throw a javelin, too. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in that, would you? I mean, I’d love to have a lad to teach again.’ He sounded wistful.