The Shadow of Tyr

by Glenda Larke

  ‘Can’t you sense a lie? I did hear rumours about that being one of the Exaltarch’s skills—’

  ‘Is that common knowledge now?’ Somehow that depressed him. ‘I suppose that’s not to be wondered at. But me? No, I can’t.’

  Thracius considered him with sympathy. ‘Ah, lad, don’t take it to heart. Me, I like you the better for being ordinary!’ His look softened. ‘All right, what’s it to be? I either take you back to the palace and tell the guards I found you wandering about the streets, or you make me a promise that you will only leave the palace when I can meet you. You can pay me for my services, if that makes you feel any better about it.’

  Arrant nodded. ‘All right. I promise. We’ll make arrangements to meet.’

  Thracius looked pleased. ‘Excellent. What about right now? I don’t suppose you really have to get back to start work.’

  Arrant smiled slightly. ‘No, but I do have one of my tutors coming. I have to return, otherwise I’ll be missed.’

  ‘Then we had better get that anchor stone up. Can you pull on that rope, lad? Hells, what the Vortex am I going to call you? I can hardly keep on calling the Exaltarch’s son “lad”!’

  Arrant shrugged as he moved to haul up the anchor. The seagull, coming back towards the boat for another meal, veered away, giving an indignant screech. ‘I don’t mind. Out here I’m just Urban.’

  ‘All right then. That’s fine with me. And I hope you won’t hold what I said about your mother against me, either. Didn’t mean to be disrespectful.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Arrant heaved the dripping stone aboard as Thracius inserted the oars into the rope loops on the gunwale. ‘You don’t respect her because of what she did. You don’t have to pretend with me.’

  ‘I’ve always been loyal to my Exaltarch,’ Thracius said formally, ‘and your mother’s the Exaltarch now.’ He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Though I’ll admit this new world of ours is hard to like. Sometimes I wonder if she couldn’t do with better advisers.’ Thracius paused. ‘Forgive me. Shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘It’s that wretched Altani who’s advising her now,’ Arrant said savagely.

  ‘The High Plenipotentiary?’

  ‘Yes. Ambassador Brand. Pompous fool.’ In his heart he knew that was a lie; Brand was neither pompous nor a fool. And although he had heard Brand and Ligea discuss policy and strategies at length over the lunch table, even once talking about how best she could manage the more recalcitrant members of her Advisory Council and Senate, Brand’s influence was not untoward. Ligea was far too strong to give anyone too much sway over her decisions.

  Thracius took up one of the oars and sculled the boat to face the coastline. ‘Yes, I did hear some gossip along those lines in the streets. And the fellow’s only been here a month! Didn’t waste much time, did he, then? And it’s not wise of her,’ he said. ‘People are saying that Tyrans is running in front of Altani horns now; there’s a lot of resentment.’

  Arrant was shocked. He had no idea that Brand’s influence was being criticised by the public; it seemed ridiculous. He wished he hadn’t said anything.

  ‘Don’t let it upset you,’ Thracius said kindly as they headed back to shore. ‘The Exaltarch has far too much sense to allow such a man to be seen in her company too often. After all, he used to be her slave, so they say.’

  Arrant reddened. As he sat facing Thracius, there was no way the man could not see. ‘She has taken him to the western borderlands with her,’ he said, looking away.

  Thracius’ eyes widened and he stopped rowing. ‘Oh. Oh.’ For a moment he seemed at a loss for words. Finally he started the boat moving again, saying, ‘Goddess, lad, it’s like that, is it? I did hear rumours—I’m sorry.’

  Arrant’s flush deepened. Papa, he thought, you had better get me out of here soon. I don’t think I can stand much more of this.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘So your mother’s back in Tyr.’ The two of them were seated in a small pothouse—there were only four tables—and Thracius had just handed Arrant a mug of soft ale, a suitable beverage for someone only just a man, or so he’d once informed Arrant. The place smelled of spilled mead and the unwashed bodies of the clientele; of roasting rats and the fat that dripped from the spit to sizzle on the hot hearth stones.

  Once every ten days during the two months Ligea had been gone, Arrant had left the confines of the palace to meet Thracius for a couple of hours’ freedom. What they did varied. They had been fishing again; once they’d attended a chariot race; once they’d gone to see some wrestling. On other occasions they’d just wandered through the markets, or the port, and ended up in an eating house or a pothouse somewhere.

  Arrant enjoyed Thracius’ company. The Corbussian could speak intelligently about so many things: the skills of a sculptor, the design of a mosaic floor, the lines of a horse or the pedigree of a gorclak; he could recognise the origins of a ship by the way the crew set the sails; he could hold a conversation in half-a-dozen different languages and tell a ribald joke in them all; he had been to all the better-known plays and heard the best of the bards.

  In some ways, though, it had proved to be an uncomfortable relationship. Thracius always spoke his mind, and his point of view was often not one Arrant wanted to hear. And now his mother had returned and he was wondering if he would be able to sneak out so often. ‘Yes,’ he said in reply to Thracius’ query, ‘she’s back. And Brand with her.’

  ‘Ah. I’ve heard the Altani didn’t make himself too popular in the west.’

  ‘Really? I hadn’t heard.’ But then, who would tell him anyway?

  ‘The Exaltarch’s friendship with him is not doing her any good, lad, and it’s not doing the country any good either.’

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ he snapped, and was immediately ashamed. It wasn’t Thracius who’d made him angry, but his mother and her infatuation with that hulking Altani. Damn them both.

  Thracius stirred on his stool and then leaned forward, arms on the table, facing him across the time-polished boards. ‘It is my business. It’s the business of all loyal Tyranians.’

  Arrant was silent.

  ‘We must protect her from herself. She’s just a woman, and she’s easily led astray. What kind of men are we if we let her be fooled?’

  Arrant stared at him. Easily led astray? Ligea? ‘You’re joking, Thracius. My mother is more capable than any man I know. She could gut you as easily as most women chop vegetables. She doesn’t need protection, and she wouldn’t take kindly to being described as “just a woman”, either.’ He grinned at the thought of what she would have said if she’d heard his condescension.

  ‘She’s a woman,’ he said stubbornly. ‘She lets her heart rule her head. And that’s no good in an Exaltarch.’

  ‘So what would you do about it?’ he drawled, accepting that Thracius’ prejudices were not going to be changed by him, and probably wouldn’t budge even if he had the proof chiselled in stone right under his nose.

  ‘Urban—no, Arrant, just give me the word, and I’ll get rid of him for you.’

  Arrant stared at him, astonished. ‘Get rid of Brand? How? Get the Altani rulers to recall him, just like that?’

  ‘Well, no, obviously. I was thinking of more direct means.’

  Arrant tried to hide his shock. ‘You mean—kill him?’

  ‘Yes, if it was your wish.’

  ‘You’re mad! Of course that’s not my wish.’ Yet something inside him stirred at the thought, and that response appalled him. Hurriedly, he pushed the thought away.

  Thracius didn’t appear to notice. ‘All right then, I could arrange for him to be kidnapped, and given a scare and a warning he wouldn’t forget in half-a-dozen lifetimes. He’d be off to Altan like a bolt of lightning, and he wouldn’t come back, I promise you.’

  ‘That’s not necessary.’

  The Corbussian shrugged. ‘As you wish. But don’t forget the offer if you change your mind.’

  And he
didn’t forget. When he saw Brand and Ligea laughing about something together, when he saw the way his look caressed her body—he remembered.

  He hid those rogue thoughts from Tarran, on the several occasions his brother came. His visits were brief anyway, just a moment or two to say he was all right. Arrant didn’t even have a chance to tell him about Thracius. He regretted that; he would have valued Tarran’s opinion on the Corbussian. But these days, Tarran could think of nothing but what was happening in the Mirage.

  In the past, Arrant had at least been able to provide distraction for his brother. Now, his inability to help wounded his spirit. At night, lying on his bed, staring at the shadows blurred by his tears, he reflected that all he could do for Tarran now was cry.

  It wasn’t enough, not for either of them.

  When he saw Thracius next, the Corbussian suggested a shortcut through the Snarls in order to get to the port, taking a route that passed by the new jail built to replace the Cages. Ligea had told Arrant about the horror and stink of those barred coops. He hadn’t been surprised she had ordered their demolition and replacement. Doubtless the prisoners had approved, but oddly enough the public were angry at the change, saying the new jail pampered criminals. Apparently the honest citizens of Tyr preferred the stench of the vermin-ridden cages to the present stone building.

  That day, a crowd surrounded the new building, blocking the streets and forcing Arrant and Thracius to halt. A glance showed Arrant the whole throng consisted of the scum of the Snarls: the misfits, the thugs, the unwashed beggars.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ Thracius muttered.

  Arrant knew what he meant. The crowd was saturated with such an intensity of ugly passion that it stimulated his cabochon. He tried to shut the gem down, but it stubbornly glowed and force-fed him a stream of emotions. The crowd swayed to an orchestrated rhythm that he could almost hear: a drumming passion of hate. No longer a group of individuals, it had become a united beast, with a single unreasoning mind. And someone was driving it, goading it, conducting it. Arrant briefly sensed the triumph of a subtle mind and then it was gone, hidden and anonymous in the crowd.

  The cabochon glow faded. He cursed its limitations, even as he shuddered at its possibilities. Why did it do this to him? He would rather have known nothing!

  And then he caught some of the shouts: ‘Down with the Altani! Down with the Exaltarch! Free Garcius!’

  Thracius turned to the man next to him. ‘What’s all this about, then?’

  ‘The Imperial Guards have thrown Garcius the Nab in the clink,’ the man told him angrily. ‘On the Altani Ambassador’s say-so. We’ll tell ’em all what we think of that!’

  ‘Come,’ Thracius said, taking Arrant’s arm. ‘We’ll take another route.’

  ‘Who’s Garcius?’ Arrant asked once they’d left the crowd behind.

  ‘Ah—no one important. A petty criminal, but he’s popular enough in the Snarls. He’s just an excuse. The crowd are angry about…a lot of things.’ He was going to say more, but apparently thought better of it. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said finally, but the way he said it made Arrant worry all the more.

  Just outside the main gate of the palace, they ran into another throng of people. ‘What in the Vortex is this?’ Thracius growled, taken aback at finding a second crowd so soon after the first.

  ‘The Exaltarch’s there,’ Arrant whispered in warning, glimpsing his mother’s chariot. She had just arrived at the foot of the main stairs together with her mounted bodyguard. The crowd pressed in on her as she dismounted from her chariot, but when her guard moved to form a barrier, she gestured them back and allowed people to approach. Doubtless she had sampled their mood and knew there was no hostility there.

  ‘Can she sense you?’ Thracius asked nervously.

  He shook his head. At least I hope not. But with an unpredictable cabochon, how did he know what would happen?

  Thracius wanted him to circle the crowd to the kitchen entrance, but Arrant lingered, watching. A man holding a wrapped child in his arms reached out in supplication towards Ligea. She spoke to him, then pulled back the wrapping and placed a hand on the child’s face. Her cabochon bathed the three of them with gold; the rest of the crowd drew back, awed and reverent.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Thracius hissed.

  ‘It’s probably a sick baby,’ he said.

  ‘Can she heal it?’

  ‘Maybe. But any kind of healing takes time and saps energy. I doubt that what she’s doing now will do much other than start the healing process.’ A thought came unbidden: I wish I could do that.

  Thracius seemed to be struggling with a confusion of feelings. Arrant couldn’t sort out any of them, but was aware of his agitation. Anything to do with Magor power seemed to unsettle the ex-legionnaire. Which makes two of us…

  ‘Arrant,’ Thracius said, ‘I’m off. I’ll see you in another ten days, all right?’

  He had time only to nod his agreement before Thracius was gone.

  Arrant couldn’t mention the incident in front of the jail to Ligea without revealing that he had left the palace, but he made a point of having dinner with her and Brand that night and she brought up the matter herself.

  ‘I think I can see Rathrox Ligatan’s skinny fingers manipulating this one,’ she remarked after she’d given the two of them the gist of what had happened. ‘Although I’m not sure why he’d want to drag your name into it, Brand.’

  ‘Brand didn’t order the man’s arrest?’ Arrant asked, looking not at the Altani, but at his mother.

  She gave the faintest of pauses before she replied, just to let him know that his rudeness in directing the question to her instead of to Brand had not gone unnoticed. ‘Of course not! Wherever did you get that idea? The man is just a common criminal, arrested in a perfectly normal way. But rumour has it that he is some kind of hero, seized for throwing a stone at Brand. It never happened. The whole thing is ridiculous! I ordered the demonstration to be ignored and finally the crowd drifted away, but I doubt that that will be the end of it. There’s been a lot of unrest in Tyr while we’ve been gone,’ she added. ‘I feel Rathrox is behind it: I know his style so well. Besides, I sensed him today. Favonius too. They are both in the city somewhere. Cabochon, how hard it is to combat rumour! It’s like trying to pick up a live fish by the tail…’

  She smiled at Arrant. ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you some news. Gev is coming back to Tyr.’

  He brightened. ‘He is? Why? I thought you needed him in the western borderlands.’

  ‘I do. Come to think of it, I need him everywhere. But he wants to retire. To go home, to Inge. So of course he must. He will sail from here.’

  ‘A mistake,’ Brand muttered. ‘There are times when it’s better not to go back. When there have been too many years.’ There was a wealth of meaning in his words, but Arrant wasn’t interested.

  ‘I’ll admit I was surprised,’ Ligea said. ‘He never wanted to return before. But people change, and he has grandchildren now whom he’s never met. Maybe he hankers after family.’ She lounged back on the cushions of her divan. The food on the low table in front of her was largely untouched. Arrant never usually thought of such things, but it suddenly occurred to him that she looked tired and strained.

  Brand must have had similar thoughts because he asked gently, ‘Ligea—is it worth it?’

  There was a pause before she answered. ‘I made a vow when I agreed to the Covenant,’ she said, and Arrant had an idea that she spoke for his benefit, not Brand’s. ‘I swore to serve the people of Kardiastan. To protect the country, and them.’ She cut a guava into two and then into four. ‘I still believe this is the best way I have of doing that. If I were not Exaltarch, Rathrox would soon have one of the more pliant of the highborn in the Exaltarch’s seat, someone who would reinstate slavery and think once again in terms of conquest. Especially in terms of the conquest of Kardiastan.’

  ‘Why?’ Arrant asked, puzzled. ‘Kardiastan is no threat to Tyr
.’

  ‘That’s not necessarily the way Tyranians see it. Kardiastan is both strategically important and a very uncomfortable neighbour to have.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Full of numina and people with magic swords, you see. A country to be feared. Why, one of their number—and a woman at that—even managed to gain the throne of Tyrans and bring a great empire to its knees…

  ‘If I were to die tomorrow, some in Tyrans would ache to rip out Kardiastan’s throat, if not in this generation, then in the next. Perhaps they wouldn’t succeed, but they could bring the hell of war back to us.

  ‘And so I must establish the kind of institutions that will prevent both slavery and a military-minded state from existing here again—ever. Once I have, and this land is stable, only then can I think in terms of retiring. Of having a life of my own.’ The guava was now in eight pieces. She looked up at Brand with a vestige of her quick humour. ‘Besides, I like all this, you know. In some ways, the tougher it is, the better I like it. And one day I’ll have the pleasure of bringing that bastard Rathrox down. It’s just not so easy, not when you must have scruples—and a Senate full of its own importance, trying to curb my powers.’

  Something in the rueful honesty of her smile brought home a truth about her to Arrant: she was afraid. Afraid of her own love of power. She reined herself in deliberately. The insight was a revelation.

  ‘However,’ she went on, ‘I am tempted to put on a disguise and hunt out that insect Rathrox myself, just as I would have done to someone I wanted, back in the days when I was a Brotherhood Compeer.’

  ‘Too dangerous,’ Brand said quickly. ‘In fact, I wouldn’t mind betting that he has his watchers out there at the gates waiting for you to do just that. He knows you as well as you know him, after all. He knows what you’d like to do. An arrow would be all it takes…’

  She sighed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid you’re right. In fact, I know you’re right. I’ve felt them. He has his spies everywhere, just as he always did. They watch everyone who comes and goes, and any disguise would come under his scrutiny sooner or later. But still I’m tempted. How can I bring him down if I don’t confront him?’ The guava was now so much mince on her plate and she’d eaten none of it. ‘Damn it, Brand, sometimes I feel I’m more of a prisoner now than when I was back in the Mirage, warded under Temellin’s orders.’