by Glenda Larke
‘I’m not interested in fighting,’ Arrant replied, and felt his insides go rigid. He forced himself to relax. Not to think. ‘Besides, I only get one half-day off every month.’ He tried to look sheepish. ‘I’m supposed to use the time to go to the temple.’
‘Yes, of course. Silly of me. What about fishing? Do you like to fish? My cousin, down past the docks, has a small boat. Just a little thing. But there’s plenty of fish if you get out into the middle of the bay. How about we meet up next time you are free and I take you fishing?’
Arrant felt a flare of remembered pleasure. The feel of a sea breeze ruffling his hair, the thrill of the line jerking in his fingers, the fascination of the way fish scales pockmarked his skin after he had wrestled his catch off the hook. At five he had wondered if the scales had meant he was changing into a fish. Now, his younger self seemed absurd. He found himself grinning. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d like that.’
People had begun to disperse, and they could see the ships better now. A man stood on the deck of the main vessel, surely the envoy. He was huge and richly dressed in the Altani style. He wore his reddish-brown hair longer than was the Tyranian fashion, and a lock of it over his brow was a brighter red, a bold flash of colour, in the sunshine. Arrant wasn’t sure if that was natural or not, but he found it hard to imagine this man tinting his hair the way Ligea did now she was Exaltarch.
‘Got the figure of a galley slave, hasn’t he, though?’ Thracius mused. ‘Broad as an ox and the shoulders of a gorclak. Ugly brute. Urban, I have to be off. Got things to do.’ He gripped Arrant’s arm, hand to forearm, the legionnaire’s traditional gesture of greeting and farewell. ‘It’s been a pleasure talking to you. Shall we meet here on your next half-day off, on this wharf, exactly a month from now would that be? Say, two hours past dawn?’
‘I’d like that,’ Arrant said, and his heart suddenly felt lighter. He doubted that he would turn up, but at least he could if he wanted. ‘And thank you,’ he added, ‘for the money-pouch, I mean.’
Thracius lifted his hand in farewell and disappeared into the remnants of the crowd. Arrant turned back to watch the first of the galleys.
By this time, a detachment of the palace’s mounted guard was approaching down the wharf, doubtless sent by Ligea once she had learned of the envoy’s arrival. Someone would have sent word the moment the ships had come through the booms. Arrant shrank back behind some bales; the last thing he wanted was to be recognised by one of the palace guard.
They had brought spare mounts with them and the Altani and his attendants were soon riding through the crowd escorted by a Tyranian guard of honour.
Arrant had a good look at the envoy as he rode past. He had a withered arm.
It was Brand.
Ligea ordered that the Altani envoy and his small entourage, as representatives of one of Tyr’s closest allies, be given quarters inside the palace rather than a villa in Tyr’s diplomatic quarter. It was a mark of special favour, but not without precedent. The palace was spacious, containing numerous apartments and atriums with attached private gardens, far too many for the needs of an Exaltarch who had no love of courtiers, no interest in courtesans or catamites or gigolos, and no patience with hangers-on.
A day after the envoy’s arrival, the Exaltarch accepted the envoy’s credentials in a public ceremony, attended by many of the city’s highborn and public officials. Immediately afterwards, the envoy requested a private audience, which was graciously bestowed by the Exaltarch in her private apartments.
When the servants flung open the doors for Brand, Ligea was standing in the middle of her audience room, dressed in her regal best and outwardly in command of herself; her scribe Narbius and her handmaiden, Narjemah, were in attendance. As the envoy approached her, she dismissed the two attendants, and asked them to shut the doors on their way out. Narbius looked at her reproachfully as he left, but she ignored him. Narjemah gave Brand a broad grin, and he responded with a wink as she pulled the doors closed.
Alone, the two of them stood for a moment in silence. Brand moved first, crossing the room to her, to seize her hands, unspeaking. Their eyes sought the traces of the years, the scarring of tragedies, the laughter lines of a life lived well. They searched and saw—and grieved. There had been little laughter, few joys and so much pain.
‘Almost nine years,’ she whispered. ‘So long.’
He released her hands and enclosed her in the fold of his embrace, the strength of his right arm compensating for the weakness of the left.
‘Oh, dear friend,’ she murmured into his shoulder, ‘I have been so lonely for so very long! So damnably alone.’
And for the first time in more years than she cared to measure, the Exaltarch of Tyrans cried.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Arrant hated Brand.
He hated the way he and his mother smiled at one another. He hated their conversation, recalling this and that from the days before he’d been born, conversation that excluded him by virtue of its content.
The Altani towered over everyone, a giant of a man, confident in his size and strength, even though he had a withered arm. Everyone liked him; even the servants couldn’t do enough for him. The man’s mastery over himself annoyed Arrant; he was always so in control, so calm, so confident. Arrant despised the readiness of the sneer behind the man’s smile, the way he subtly mocked anyone who said something stupid, the way no one else could see through the charm to what lay at the centre of this man’s sardonic heart.
Worst of all, the Altani was there, in Tyr, and Temellin was not and never could be. Arrant wished that Gevenan was around to put this man in his place, but from all his mother told him, Gevenan had his hands full and she had no plans to bring him back to Tyr yet.
When Tarran became aware of his antipathy, he tried to remonstrate. Brand’s all right, he said. His love for your mother is genuine.
It was the wrong thing to say. Arrant didn’t want to hear about a man’s love for his mother, any more than he wanted to hear about how close they had been in the past. Damn it all, she still professed to love his father, if his letters to her were any indication. He cut Tarran short and refused to talk about the matter, or even to think about it when Tarran was with him.
From this, he closed his brother off.
Sometimes, Tarran muttered, frustrated, you have a tight-arsed mind, Arrant. Mirageless soul, I’ve more chance of growing hair on my chest than understanding you humans!
Brand had come on behalf of the ruling High Lord of Altan, once a rebel leader called Hotash, to sign a new treaty of trade and cooperation with Tyrans. The signing ceremonies were duly carried out with much pomp and formality—Ligea hadn’t managed to rid Tyrans of its propensity to overindulge in ceremonial—and Arrant expected Brand would then sail for Altan. He didn’t. His ships returned with copies of the treaty, but Brand stayed on.
Ambassador Brand, High Plenipotentiary of Altan to Tyr.
It was hard to find Ligea without Brand at her side. At official functions, he was just one of the plenipotentiaries, but inside the palace he was always there. His apartments in the palace were a mark of Tyrans’ friendship with Altan, so it was said officially. Unofficially, she slept with the High Lord’s ambassador, and within days everyone in the palace knew it.
Arrant tried to avoid talking to Brand, which was difficult when Ligea insisted that the three of them have a meal together almost every day. Arrant retaliated with silence unless he was addressed directly. Then he would reply, careful to be scrupulously polite. Brand would have had to be both blind and stupid not to have known he was being snubbed.
After several weeks of this treatment, Ligea was fed up and, in a rare private moment, told Arrant so.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked innocently. ‘I have never behaved disrespectfully to the Plenipotentiary! I hope I know how to behave with someone who represents his country to your government. Lepidus has schooled me in how to correctly address all ranks and nationalities.’
&
nbsp; ‘Don’t get smart with me,’ she snapped. ‘I can feel your attitude clear across the other side of the palace.’
‘No, you can’t,’ he said. ‘You haven’t been able to read me from the day we arrived in this building.’
She stared at him, nonplussed. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘How did you know that?’
He shrugged. ‘You’re my mother. I know. In fact, you know more about the servants who pick up the pisspots than about me.’
He knew he had struck a sensitive spot. And with sudden insight, he realised something else. When you came to rely on what your cabochon told you, you were lost when it failed you. At least that’s not a problem I’ll ever have, he thought with amused bitterness.
She shook her head at him. ‘Goddess damn you, Arrant. I can have seasoned legionnaires tremble in their sandals when I walk past—why in all Acheron’s seven hells can’t I get my own son to behave?’
He thought of a clever answer, in fact several of them, but only after she had left the room.
A day later, Brand came to his door. ‘May I come in?’ he asked when Arrant answered his knock.
Arrant hesitated just long enough to make Brand feel uncomfortable, and then said, ‘Yes, of course. Won’t you please have a seat? It is an honour for me to have a plenipotentiary come to my private rooms! None of the others have ever done that.’
Brand took the divan offered. ‘No, I don’t suppose they have. Our relationship is, um, special.’
Arrant raised his eyebrows as he sat opposite. ‘I was unaware we even had a relationship.’ Ocrastes’ damn. I am getting good at this rhetoric stuff…
‘I have known you since before you were born, in a manner of speaking.’
‘Well, I have no recollection of that, obviously. I do remember when we went to Altan when I was five or so. I didn’t like you.’
‘No, that’s true. You were jealous, I think.’
‘Doubtless I had reason.’
‘Arrant, I have the deepest respect for your father—’
Arrant stood up abruptly. How dare he! ‘No, you don’t. Or you wouldn’t hang around my mother like a dog sniffing for whatever he can get.’
Brand climbed to his feet, much more slowly, and had the advantage of towering over him. ‘Arrant, Ligea and I have known each other since we were younger than you are now. You know that, surely. Ligea has not seen Temellin in more than eight years. That’s a long time for a woman to be alone. She needs a friend.’
‘She has Gevenan! Or Narjemah. Or me. Why doesn’t she come to me?’ His chest was heaving and he didn’t seem able to unclench his fists. He knew he had lost control of the conversation. He sounded like a petulant child.
Brand echoed that last thought with his next words. ‘Arrant, you are no longer a child. You know what I am talking about.’
‘Stop right there! You have no right to even bring this up with me! How dare you even mention—’
‘No—you stop right there. I’ve loved your mother long enough to have earned the right to speak of matters which concern her happiness and wellbeing. And what she needs right now is a son who cares enough for her, and who is man enough, to put her wellbeing before his own selfishness. You have no right to demand further sacrifice from her because you aren’t secure enough within yourself to see her as a woman with needs. Right now, she needs you to be an adult about this. I don’t mean even half as much to her as Temellin does; I know that and I deal with it. You ought to know that too, and if you don’t, I’m telling you. But Temellin is not here, and I am. For her sake, be thankful I am.’ With that, he turned and walked out of the room.
Arrant ran and slammed the door shut behind him. He turned and leaned against it, but his knees didn’t seem to want to hold him up. He slid down until he was sitting on the marble floor, his back to the door. ‘The bastard!’ he said. ‘The bastard…the sodding bastard!’ His voice cracked as sobs shook his body. He wanted to be adult and cold and calculating, but the tears came anyway, making a lonely, lost boy of him all over again.
When the tears finally ceased, he rested the back of his head against the door and closed his eyes. Tarran, he thought. Please come, Tarran. I need you. I am so lonely…
But Tarran didn’t come.
And that made him fear for his brother. He always came when Arrant was upset or frightened. Didn’t he?
Ligea called Arrant into her audience room early the next morning. His stomach churned. That bastard Altani wouldn’t have told her about that conversation, would he?
He need not have worried. She just wanted to tell him she had settled on a date for her departure to the western border region. ‘I’ve just had word from Gev. He says the sooner the better, so I am leaving tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes. To tell you the truth, the idea of escaping Tyr for a while is enticing. If I make preparations, everyone would know, of course—so it seems better if I just go. Take everyone by surprise. Gives them less time to plan mischief. What I want to know is this: do you want to come with me?’
He was wary. ‘Is Brand going with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then no.’
She was surprised. ‘Why ever not? I know you don’t like living here, unable to step out of the palace much—’
‘Mater, if you’re going whoring around the countryside with Brand, I don’t want any part of the trip.’
She went very white, except for two red spots in her cheeks. Mercifully, his cabochon didn’t enlarge on her emotions.
‘Arrant,’ she said, ‘please try to understand—’
‘Oh, I understand all right. I understand perfectly. I am old enough for that.’
She paused, then said quietly, sighing, ‘Somehow I think you’re not.’
‘I loathe being in the presence of that man.’ He made no attempt to conceal the savagery of his disgust with her. Then, to sharpen the cutting edge of his words, he added, ‘Couldn’t you at least have waited until I had gone to Kardiastan before you invited that—that sneering, self-satisfied, smug bastard under your wrap? You’re like some silly servant girl who can’t keep her eyes off the backside of one of the palace guards!’
Her face went from white to dark, and he knew he had the power to enrage her as never before. She snapped, ‘How dare you presume to insult me on a subject you know nothing about!’
They stood facing each other across the room, and it was he who looked away first. Tears pricked behind his eyelids and his throat seemed to have swelled so large he could scarcely breathe.
He hated her. He hated her. How dare she do this to him? How dare she put him in this humiliating position where everyone mocked her as a whore, where everyone was laughing at her?
There was a long pause while she took a deep breath and controlled her rage. When she spoke again, she sounded calm. ‘You will go to your father soon. It won’t be long; a matter of months at the most. And while I am in the borderlands, please have a care. Tyr is not safe for either of us yet. I forbid you to set foot in the city while I am gone, even with your guards.’
She gestured with a hand, dismissing him. He turned on his heel and walked out, back in control.
In his anger and hurt, he had not heard her pain.
That night Arrant had another Ravage dream.
He dreamed he was submerged beneath the stinking ooze and was being attacked by its creatures—nothing new about that—but when he woke up he was not in his room on his pallet. He was somewhere else. And he had no body.
In fact, he was not human. Nor did he seem to have any limits.
He was an immensity of matter and he was aware of it all, all of it him: vast, huge, sensitive, every part aware, every part capable of sensation, of pain, of joy. He was here and there as well. He had no eyes or ears or nose or skin, yet he saw and heard and smelled and felt. He was all senses—
Appalled, he realised he wasn’t a person; he was a land…trees, lakes, animals, flowers, rivers, beauty. His vastness overwhelmed
him. He was deluged with sensations too numerous for his mind to catalogue, drowned in stimuli too vivid for his brain to absorb. He could not cope with his own enormity.
His mind was going to burst: this was too much! I am not this—this is not me!
And then, suddenly, he felt a terrible tearing agony. He wanted to rip himself up, rend himself to pieces, destroy what he was, anything to rid himself of what ate at him. Devoured him. Oh, sweet Mirage—
Arrant! What in the name of the Magor are you doing here? Get out! You’ll go mad—
Where am I?
You’re in the Mirage—you’ve joined us! You must get out of here—
And he was back on his pallet, flung back by the Mirage Makers, dragged back by Tarran, jolted into his own reality. He lay gasping, his whole body still aching with the memory of an intensity of pain that seemed almost incomprehensible.
Shit, Arrant, you gave me a fright.
‘Tarran—damn it, what happened?’
Skies above, who knows? You did what I do, I guess. You came to me, the way I come to you. You were there, with us, in the Mirage. You were one of us—one of the Mirage Makers…I thought you were going to die—
‘So did I. By all that’s holy, how can you stand such pain?’
There was a pause before Tarran answered. Then: We are not human, Arrant. We—we have each other. And it’s not usually so bad. It’s just the past few weeks the Ravage has been trying to expand itself. Brother, I must go. They need me. We must withstand this, or we are—
He didn’t tell him what they would be but Arrant knew anyway. Dead. Doomed. Torn to pieces. Sweet Melete, now he knew.
Tarran left, leaving Arrant feeling as if every cranny of his mind had been pounded.
He was still shaking with shock when his door opened and his mother came in. She had flung a wrap over her sleeping gown but she was barefoot and breathing hard as if she’d been running. She held her Magor sword in her hand and it glowed.
‘Arrant?’ she asked, her voice panicked in a way he hadn’t heard for years. ‘Goddess, what happened? What’s the matter?’