by Glenda Larke
‘A dream,’ he said. ‘I thought I was attacked by the Ravage.’ Vortexdamn, this time his emotions must have had the punch of a rampaging gorclak. She’d felt him clear across the palace to her sleeping quarters. So much for never reading his emotions…
Using the tip of her sword, she lit the small oil lamp on the low table by his bed. ‘A dream? But your pain was so real—I thought, I thought—oh, hells, I don’t know what I thought! I haven’t felt you for four years, and now, when I do, it was to be slammed with something so, so stark and agonised…’ She dragged in air, slowed her breathing, took his hand in hers.
‘I know,’ he said dryly. Vortex, he could feel it still. ‘I’m all right now. It was just a dream.’
She sat on the bed at his side, not relinquishing her hold on his hand. ‘Are you sure?’
He said, with a vehemence that welled up from inside him, ‘You gave my brother into that horror. He’s there still, suffering—’ He stopped, and could have bitten off his tongue. He hadn’t intended to make such a pointless accusation.
She released his hand and stared at him, expressionless. And then, finally, flat-voiced: ‘How did you know that?’
Too late he remembered: no one had ever told him about how Pinar had died, or about his brother—except Tarran. He lay still, thoughts skittering this way and that as he wondered what he could possibly say to explain it. He even considered telling her about Tarran. But how in all the seven layers of Acheron did you tell someone that you heard voices in your head from a being who lived in another country on the other side of a mountain range?
Could I prove Tarran’s existence? he wondered. I could show her I know a lot of things I shouldn’t be able to know—about the past, about the Mirage and the Ravage. The idea of sharing his knowledge of Tarran’s pain was suddenly overwhelmingly attractive. He wouldn’t have to shoulder the burden of knowing all by himself…
And then he remembered something Brand had said to him. 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.
If he told her about Tarran, how on earth would she feel? Tarran would no longer be a nebulous embryo she had given to the Mirage Makers, but a real person, the suffering brother of her son. She would understand the consequences of what she had done.
A fitting punishment for her behaviour, surely.
A horrible thought, horrible. How could he even think it? He shuddered, hating himself.
He withdrew, closing off every part of himself that he could find, pushing all feeling down into that dried-up ball of pain and memories in his centre. ‘I, er, suppose—’ he began, and hoped that once again he was unreadable to her, ‘I suppose someone must have mentioned it when we were in Ordensa.’
When she sighed, he knew he had succeeded.
She said quietly, ‘It was either Pinar’s son or you, Arrant. I made a choice, and I don’t regret it.’ He heard the other words she didn’t say: And it was either Pinar or me…
He was subdued now. ‘Yes. Yes, I know. I do know. I don’t blame you.’
They were both silent. Somehow there didn’t seem to be anything either of them could say, no way either of them could explain themselves, or explain what had happened to them. They were as far apart as the sands of Kardiastan were from the marble walls of Tyr.
He closed his eyes, and a moment later heard her move away and let herself out.
Loneliness closed in once more, the chill of it enfolding him. He knew he had just made an adult choice. He knew it had been the right choice.
So why do I feel so utterly miserable?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The day after Ligea and Brand’s departure was the day that Arrant had arranged to go fishing with Thracius.
Still reckless with an anger that had not dissipated in spite of Ligea’s visit to his room, he didn’t think twice about leaving the palace to meet the Corbussian ex-legionnaire. And she didn’t care anyway, did she? All she wanted was to crawl into bed with her lover. Anyway, Thracius was no danger to him. The man had no idea who he was. And Arrant had not sensed that the fellow was the kind of man who, er, liked boys; Thracius’ eyes gleamed whenever his gaze lit on an attractive woman. Arrant had begun to notice things like that.
I will go, he thought. The truth was, his loneliness was eating him alive. If Tarran had been around, it wouldn’t have mattered so much. Just thinking of his brother produced a nauseating lump of worry in the pit of his stomach, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Yes. I will go. It will be fun to go fishing again.
Yet once he reached the wharf, he was beginning to regret the impulse that had brought him. It was foolish, surely, to think that a man who must be older than his mother would really be interested in a lad he thought to be a palace servant. He must have another reason. Arrant had heard stories of boys enticed away from their homes only to vanish, to be used for who knows what purpose…
When he spotted Thracius, though, his uncertainties vanished. The ex-legionnaire flashed a grin of pure delight and greeted Arrant with a cheery, ‘Well met, Urban—I’m glad you came.’ He held up a basket to show him. ‘Fishing gear and lugworms as bait. And, of course, something for us: flat meat-cakes, with sauce. And a flagon of watered wine. There’s a clink in my pockets nowadays,’ he added happily. ‘I have a job as a night guard with some moneymasters. Dangerous work in these Goddess-forsaken times, and it’s not the same as being a legionnaire, but the pay is good.’
Arrant’s cabochon gave a twinge in his palm, and chose that moment to tell him that what Thracius had said last was the exact truth. Unfortunately, unasked, it also decided to give him a rush of information involving, apparently, the conversation of every individual in the neighbourhood. An awful lot of them seemed to be liars. He sighed as they turned to walk in the direction Thracius indicated.
‘Something wrong?’ Thracius asked.
‘No, no. But, if it’s hard to find a good job, why didn’t you stay in the army?’
‘And serve the present Exaltarch? No.’
His bluntness took Arrant aback. ‘Why not?’
‘Because she destroyed the Exaltarchy. She brought down the greatest empire the world has ever known. Tore it into pieces. And now we have a ruinous policy of a slaveless society, and every petty group of peasants who once benefited from our rule now governs themselves.’ He smiled ruefully at Arrant. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t gabble on like this to someone who works in the palace!’
Arrant shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to tell anyone. Besides, you are quite safe. This Exaltarch doesn’t throw people into the Cages for expressing an opinion.’
‘No, that’s true,’ he conceded. ‘But you see, Urban, I was a legionnaire. We fought and sacrificed so much for Tyrans to rule from one end of the Sea of Iss to the other. Friends died beside me in battle for those ideals—and when Ligea Gayed became Exaltarch, she chucked it all away.’ He gave a shrug and another smile, as if he laughed at himself. ‘But it’s all in the past now. Little point in being bitter about what I cannot change, right? Perhaps you and me should agree not to discuss politics, all right?’
Arrant found himself smiling back. He knew he should have argued, said all the things about how slavery was wrong, and that Bator Korbus had been a cruel and violent man, and that it was his wars of acquisition, fuelled by greed, that had killed Thracius’ friends, but he didn’t. It was hard to dislike Thracius. He was so open, so unabashed about what he thought and what he believed in, so proud of his achievements, of what he had been.
They walked on through the bustle of the commercial port, past the fishing fleet on the other side, and so to the fishing village on the outskirts of the city, outside the walls. Here, Thracius’ cousin had his small mastless boat, homemade and cumbersome, beached on a bay along the River Tyr. ‘We don’t even have to leave the safety of the bay,’ Thracius said. ‘I’m no sailor, and the tide out in the centre of the river c
an have you halfway to the Issian Isles before you know it, or so I’m told. Here, help me get this thing launched…’
Out on the water in the sunshine fifteen minutes later, catching the occasional fish, where the only threat seemed to be the avaricious eye of a seagull, and the only tension that between fish and man, Arrant felt the perfection of a peace he had not encountered since leaving the Stronghold. For a while he could pretend to be just a child, enclosed in that childhood illusion of safety. For a brief hour or two, he knew a happiness he had not felt for years.
In between the excitement of hauling in each catch, Thracius chatted, describing what it had been like to be a soldier in an Exaltarchy that stretched through all the known world—not stories of battle and death, but tales of the absurdities of military life, stories of the places and people he had seen. Arrant listened, enthralled.
‘Did you know,’ Thracius asked, ‘that the women of inland Fastiglia take a new husband each time they have a child, discarding the old one like a worn-out skirt? And what about Asagon! Now, there’s a strange place. There, the wise men tattoo male genitals on their foreheads to show that they have renounced sexual pleasures in exchange for wisdom.’
Midmorning, they shared the food Thracius had brought and Arrant sighed with contentment.
‘How old are you, lad?’ Thracius asked suddenly.
‘Thirteen.’
‘Born what month?’
‘The last month of the snow-season. Why?’
‘Ah—just comparing you to my nephew, back in Corbussia. He’s around the same age. Wish sometimes that I had a lad of my own, one that I know about.’ He gave one of his grins. ‘Not too late yet, though, is it?’
Arrant smiled back.
‘I suppose we had better think about returning. You only get a half-day off, right?’
Arrant nodded. ‘’Fraid so. I have enjoyed myself, though, Thracius.’ He began to pick the fish scales off his skin, remembering doing the same thing long ago, Temellin sitting beside him.
Thracius stared at Arrant’s bandaged hand and gave a quick frown. ‘What did you do to yourself there, Urban?’
‘What—? Oh, this. A cut, that’s all.’
‘Must have been bad to take so long to mend. You were wearing the bandage last time I saw you.’
Arrant felt himself flushing. ‘I knocked it before it was healed. Ripped it open again.’
A moment earlier the look on Thracius’ face had been one of concern. Now his expression could have been chiselled marble. Arrant’s flush deepened. Then he felt the twinges of fear.
Thracius’ left hand flashed out to grip his, the hold as powerful as a vice, his eyes black with a deep, killing fury. Arrant knew he had made a terrible mistake. Thracius was groping for his dagger, and there was nothing he could do. The man was all muscle and sinew, a trained fighter. Even as Arrant struggled to pull his hand free, Thracius slashed with the knife.
Arrant looked down. The bandage on his hand fell off, neatly cut away. Instinctively he curled his fingers over his palm. With ridiculous ease, the ex-legionnaire forced his grip open.
The cabochon lay quiescent and visible, a golden gem in the middle of his palm. Ligea had cut the skin free of it not long after they had come to live in the palace. ‘I won’t hide what we are any longer,’ she’d said.
Thracius’ sharp intake of breath contained all the horror of a man condemned. ‘Ocrastes’ balls! You are the Exaltarch’s bastard son!’ He looked up to meet Arrant’s gaze, his voice an appalled whisper. ‘Holy Goddess! My head will be stuck on the palace gate for this! Are you mad? What have I ever done to you that you would do this to me?’
‘I haven’t done anything to you!’ Arrant protested.
‘Sodding son of a bitch you haven’t! You’re the son of the ruler of Tyrans. I’ll be accused of kidnapping or worse. Who the sweet hells is going to believe I took Urban—whatever-your-name-is—’
‘Arrant.’
‘—Arrant out fishing because I thought you were a pisspot servant boy from the palace? For all I know, just thinking you were a servant might be enough to see me burned at the stake.’
They stared at each other, in a stillness so long a seagull was emboldened to come and sit on the bow of the anchored boat. It eyed the heap of bait.
‘My mother is not like that,’ Arrant said finally. ‘No one will harm you. I will not let her, for a start. And no one is going to find out anyway. I have been leaving the palace like this for a year or so and no one has ever found out. Row me back to the shore, Thracius, and I shall walk back to the palace. You will never hear of this again. And if you are wise, you won’t mention it to anyone.’
There was another long silence. The seagull made off with some of the lugworms. The agonised look on the man’s face did not diminish.
‘I—I can’t do that,’ Thracius said miserably. ‘What if you came to harm on your own? I would be responsible.’
‘You’re not responsible for me!’
‘I am now. I know who you are and what you do.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Urban, er—Dominus, I have to take you back to the palace, and tell the guards what you’ve been up to. You can’t wander the streets of Tyr alone. It is too bloody dangerous. I have to take my chances that the Exaltarch won’t have me scourged for this.’
‘Why should what I do worry you? You despise my mother for what she has done, for a start!’
He looked shocked. ‘Yes, but she is still my Exaltarch! I despised that son of a bitch Bator Korbus, too, you know, as a man. But the Exaltarch—whoever it is—is Tyrans. I would never do anything to harm Tyrans. And having the Exaltarch’s son loose on the streets of the city could bring disaster!’
‘Nonsense! Who cares enough about me?’
‘Are you so very stupid, boy? If someone who didn’t have Tyrans’ best interests at heart was to find out, they could kidnap you and force Domina Ligea to do something foolish. Always assuming she does care what happens to her idiot offspring!’
Arrant flushed. He’s right, he thought, despairing.
Thracius heaved a deep sigh, and some of the tension dissipated from him. ‘I’m sorry, lad. I shouldn’t have said that.’ He gave the ghost of a smile. ‘Quite apart from the fact that it’s bloody stupid to call the son of a ruler an idiot, it isn’t true. You aren’t an idiot—just very young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. And it can’t be easy, shut up in the palace all the time, surrounded by men sucking up to you, not knowing who to trust. It’s no life for a lad.’
‘You—you understand?’
‘I was a tribune once. That was enough to get invited to a lot of banquets and the like when we were in Tyr and other cities. I know about tedious protocol, about having to watch your tongue. I know you rode with the rebels, just as I rode with the legions; you were raised to be a soldier, like me, not a courtier. Yes, I know how you must feel. Still, it’s not safe for you to wander the streets at will.’
‘Please, Thracius, don’t tell anyone about this.’ He heard the whine in his tone, and hated himself for pleading.
‘Are you going to stop sneaking out of the palace?’
Arrant’s glimpse of the future was crushing. No escape from the palace walls. Nothing absorbing or distracting to offer Tarran when next he came. It was all very well for his mother to talk of sending him to Kardiastan, but she’d been speaking of that for years and it hadn’t happened yet. What if it never did? What if his Father decided he didn’t want a son who couldn’t manage his Magor power?
He was silent.
Thracius sighed. ‘Well, thank you for not lying, anyway. All right, we’ll make a pact, you and me. You promise never to leave the palace without telling me, and I won’t say anything. If you want to be alone, I’ll just follow you to make sure you are safe. But no more wandering around alone. Ever.’
Arrant considered that, knowing in his heart that the man was right. He risked too much on his own in the city. It would be
different if he could rely on the power in his cabochon.
Thracius frowned as if he’d had a sudden thought. ‘Or am I the one being stupid and naive?’ he asked. When Arrant gave a questioning look, Thracius indicated the cabochon. ‘That,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows now what the Domina Ligea did with that thing the day she took Tyr. Not to mention having a sword that scares the piss out of brave men. Come to think of it, I heard stories about you, too. About something that happened at the North Gate. I wasn’t in Tyr myself, at the time, but people talk.’ He eyed the cabochon. ‘They say you killed legionnaires with that thing.’
Arrant nodded. The seagull had come back for a second helping of the bait and glared at him with a bright yellow eye. ‘Yes. I did,’ he said quietly.
‘So I am just being the stupid dolt, am I? You are quite capable of looking after yourself. And right now you’re laughing at me.’
Arrant shook his head.
Thracius bent over his dagger, apparently examining the blade for nicks. ‘I’m a soldier and I’ll fight—bravely—any man who stands against me. But someone who pours out light and magic and spells—?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s not the kind of thing that a man likes to deal with. Our legions lost too many men to numina magic in Kardiastan.’
Arrant sighed. Thracius felt Magor power was a coward’s way out, but he wasn’t quite blunt enough to say it. ‘You haven’t seen me do any of those things,’ he said.
‘No, I haven’t, but you could if you wanted to, I suppose.’
‘No, I can’t. My c—the gemstone in my hand doesn’t really work any more. It never has worked well, and ever since the day we entered Tyr—’ He swallowed, trying not to remember. ‘I can’t use it. I just—can’t.’ He stirred uneasily. It didn’t seem right to speak about it to a non-Magor. Ligea would have been furious if she had heard him.
‘So what can you do?’
‘About the only thing I can do with any reliability is to shield myself from my mother,’ he said, not bothering to hide his bitterness. ‘I don’t even have to think about that. It just happens.’