His explanation came to a halt. There had to be something he could say, some way of making her understand him, but her face was turned away from him, buried in the Hegeoman’s shoulder. Noetos watched her chest rise and fall, slowly, shallowly, unevenly.
‘Go and look for her son. Opuntia tells me he was alive and unharmed, borne away by the Recruiter who cut her. Go. Leave her to someone who loved her.’
Eyes blurring as if trying to erase the tableau before him, his heart clenched in the merciless fist of truth, Noetos could do nothing but obey.
‘This is the sort of thing the King of Roudhos could have prevented,’ said Ataphaxus conversationally. ‘With my help—’
Noetos sunk a fist into the man’s stomach. The Recruiter folded around the blow, then crashed to the ground, trying to catch his breath.
‘You are to blame for this, not me,’ Noetos said, his voice rattling in a constricted throat. ‘We have nothing to talk about.’
It took a series of gasping breath before the Recruiter was able to nod his head in agreement.
Noetos had used his right hand for the blow. He could feel nothing from his injured left hand. Shock is an effective pain killer.
As they reached the road, Noetos heard a rattling sigh, accompanied by a loud sob from the Hegeoman.
The fisherman’s dream of a normal life, of a quiet existence, one far removed from the destiny to which he’d been raised and run from, had just died.
Anomer they found alive.
His son sat on rocks down by the Saar River, a few hundred paces from the road. The landslide had reached even here, flowing in a rush across the river, damming three channels, though water seeped through. Two bodies lay floating in the water behind the dam, and Anomer watched them spin slowly in the spiralling water.
Noetos climbed gingerly over the crumpled debris, signalled the Recruiter to stand where he could be seen, and sat himself down next to Anomer.
‘Your mother is dead,’ he told his son.
The boy made no movement at the sound of his father’s voice. ‘That’s Cutalian, the servant of the Recruiters, floating in the water,’ he said in a voice so low Noetos had to struggle to hear it. ‘He told me I’d make a great sorcerer.’
Noetos said nothing.
‘And there’s Jamik beside him. Such a gifted swordsman, and he was only thirteen. He always defeated me when we sparred. Why? Why did they have to die?’
My boy thinks he’s dead, too, Noetos realised. The shock has him. He sees himself lying face down in a river, or crushed under rock.
‘I saw Mother slain,’ his son said. ‘Bilitharn slid his long knife into her, right to the hilt. She didn’t say anything, even when it came out with her blood on it. He went for me next, but Ataphaxus stopped him.’
‘So I should be thankful one member of my family remains alive?’ Noetos said, unable to keep the pain from his voice.
‘But Mother is dead,’ Anomer said, his own voice breaking. ‘Why did you interfere? They promised we would be unharmed if you surrendered to them. They would be restrained in their dealings with us, they said. Instead…’ He indicated the bodies in the water pooling behind the landslide. ‘How many have died?’
Noetos grabbed his son’s arm in what he hoped was a painful grip. ‘Have you forgotten your sister? Where was the Recruiters’ restraint then? How could I leave you in their hands?’
‘They were not all evil,’ Anomer said. ‘Ataphaxus protected me from Bilitharn.’
‘Are you asking me for mercy on his behalf?’ Noetos jerked a thumb at the Recruiter. How could Anomer wish for such a thing? These were the men who had enslaved and used Arathé, who had killed Opuntia. The boy was not thinking clearly. Shock, no doubt. He did not answer Noetos’s question.
Noetos himself was finding it difficult to think with any clarity. Opuntia. Her name clattered through his mind like a landslide. Her white face staring at the wreck of her daughter. Clatter, clatter. Her slim fingers unlacing his tunic. Clatter. Her voice, measured and precise, giving assent to his wedding vows. Clatter. The memories threatened to bury him. Yet her face was hazy in his mind’s eye, as though obscured by dust.
Mercy? He owed the man Ataphaxus nothing. The Recruiters had destroyed his life. What he would do to the man was just.
He called for the others in a loud voice. Eventually the miners made their way down from the road and gathered around him.
‘Oh dear, oh my,’ said a voice he did not want to hear. A man who could not be held responsible.
‘Be silent, Omiy. You and I will talk later,’ the fisherman said. ‘I want a man to hold down each of this murderer’s limbs. Hold him tight, because he will struggle.’
Seren and Papunas took the man’s arms, two other miners his legs.
‘Attend,’ Noetos said, and drew out the huanu stone.
A terrible cry, almost too highly pitched for hearing, emerged from the Recruiter’s throat when he divined what was about to happen. His eyes bulged.
Noetos placed the carving on the man’s chest. The hungry green stone drank the man’s magical powers in an almost visible process. It was as though some vital essence was being pulled out of the man’s skin, separated from his being, stripped like soil from a mountainside during an inexorable rain. Like the tide going out, never to return.
At the finish the man seemed smaller. Not someone to be feared.
‘We’ll let this one go,’ Noetos said as the miners allowed the Recruiter to his feet. ‘Go and find somewhere to die.’
A moment later an urgent memory broke into Noetos’s gelid thoughts. He called to Ataphaxus as the Recruiter made his way along the riverbank into the northern distance.
‘Halt! Tell me of Arathé! What did you do with my daughter’s body?’
The man looked over his shoulder, an expression of hatred and fear locked onto his face, then sprinted away in a furious flurry of arms and legs.
‘Papunas, send a couple of miners after him. I must know the truth!’
‘No, fisherman, or whoever you are,’ the overseer said. ‘Enough. We’ve paid for your help in delivering the Fisher Coast from the Neherian fleet. It is time t’ give thought to the living, and let the dead rest.’
‘Aye, we have bodies to bury,’ Seren said. ‘And we are in desperate need of supplies. No more chasin’, no more fightin’. You have questions to answer, and when we have heard the answers we will return to Eisarn.’
‘Fisherman, we owe you thanks for saving our village,’ said one of the men from Makyra Bay, the oldest of them. ‘But we, also, must leave you now. We worry about what might happen to our people should the Neherians return.’
Blow upon blow. Noetos turned to his sworn men. ‘I suppose you wish to be released?’
‘Well, you did promise them, you did, yes,’ said the alchemist, when none of his men would speak. ‘It would make good sense for them to accompany the other miners. You have nothing to offer them beyond dreams of revenge, oh my, visions of destruction.’
‘Very well,’ Noetos said, enraged. ‘I will travel on alone.’
Not that he had given any thought to where he might go; it seemed only that there were places pushing him away. First Fossa, then Neherius, now all of Old Roudhos.
Bregor stood on the top of the riverbank. ‘I’ll think about staying with you, fisherman,’ he said, his voice tight with restraint. ‘I want answers. But first Anomer and I have a grave to dig. We will let you know when you may join us to bless her departure.’
He had nothing to say to that.
A bitter drink…
‘Be silent, Cyclamere,’ he said, and bowed his head.
When next he looked up, he was alone on the riverbank, apart from the two corpses in the water.
‘Come then, friends, let’s put you to bed,’ he said to them. ‘Unless there is someone here who thinks I’m not worthy to bury you?’
There was no answer among the silent stones of the riverbed, save the lapping of the ever-running water, like a thousand acc
using tongues.
I killed them, he admitted, and his broad shoulders bowed under the weight of truth. I killed them all.
CHAPTER 23
RACEME HARBOUR
‘WHERE’S GAWL?’ Dagla asked.
Go away. Noetos turned over on his bed of straw on the chandlery floor. The morning had arrived far too soon.
‘My lord, I ain’t seen Gawl since last night. He might of run off. You want me to go look for him?’
It wasn’t that he grieved for Opuntia, not really. He had loved her once, a young person’s optimism; and, he believed, she had loved him. She’d said so. But he had lost her somewhere amid the children and the fishing and Old Fossa and the dishonesty and deception. He could never have told her about his father, his grandfather, about Roudhos. About how his grandfather lost a kingdom with one act of courageous stupidity. About how his family was murdered by Neherians to prevent Roudhos ever rising from the ashes. Had Noetos told Opuntia his secrets she would have—well, she would have got them all killed. So yes, he grieved, but mostly for his memory of her as she had been when he first met and deceived her. For what they had both lost.
‘My lord?’
He had stood beside Anomer at her graveside as Bregor spoke of Opuntia in terms he could never have imagined. A completely different woman. There were some women, obviously, who were born to nobility. Something, ironically, the Hegeoman could supply, at least after a fashion, while the heir of Roudhos could not. He heard of her love of reading, her incisive mind, her generosity with her time, the hours she spent in Old Fossa helping young mothers. Things he had never seen.
Anomer spoke, then Noetos said something, he had no idea what, just words. It was too late for anything meaningful.
The three of them had scooped sand and soil over the shallow grave, then added rocks to deter scavengers. They had done this in complete silence. Then Noetos had taken his son and the Hegeoman aside and told them the whole bitter story.
‘Please, my lord, d’ya want me to round up the others ’n’ go lookin’ for him?’
Another voice intruded. ‘Don’t need to, Dagla. He’s out with Papunas and a couple o’ the others, shovellin’ the dirt off the road.’
Noetos turned over. ‘Seren,’ he said, ‘is Omiy about?’
The miner looked at him flatly. ‘He’s hidin’, fisherman. Like everyone, walkin’ softly ‘round you. We’re all sorry you lost your wife, but to tell truth, we’re all waiting for you to explode and take your sword t’ someone.’
‘Yes, uh, I can understand that,’ Noetos said. ‘Would you go and get Omiy? Promise him I’ll not touch my sword. I only want to ask some questions.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Seren, ‘but I’ll promise him no such thing.’
The alchemist sat as far from Noetos as possible while still remaining under the chandlery roof. The late morning sun picked out gaps in the warped beams and slats above them, rendering the barn-like interior a headache-inducing combination of light and darkness. Seren made his way out, not without sending the alchemist a worried glance. Omiy shrugged his shoulders.
‘I’m not a bully, Omiy,’ Noetos said. ‘Tell me what happened. I just want to understand.’
The alchemist looked doubtful. ‘Oh my,’ he said. ‘I prepared the sulphur and the chenaile like I said I would, yes, yes. Calculated to perfection, I thought. Still think. You saw the pipe I used—very clever you said, did you not? Two chambers, chenaile separated from sulphur by a hollow wooden divider onto which I put acid, oh my, my own invention, always works, guaranteed never to fail. Genius was the word you used; tell me otherwise, stonebearer.’
Noetos worked his way through this, then nodded. ‘I did say that.’
‘I know you told me to set my device off at the bottom of the slope, so you did, but that would not have given me enough protection from the blast, oh no. I know these things, I do, you should have trusted me; but no, you wanted to send your servant the alchemist into danger. Oh my, I don’t want to die in one of my own explosions. Matter of pride, you see, yes; how will the name of Olifia the alchemist be revered among the nations if it was said of him that he perished by his own clumsy hand? Intolerable. So I took myself up the hill to the summit, I did. On your signal I dropped the pipe and took cover behind the crest of the cliff. The weakened wooden divider broke when the pipe hit the rocks a few paces below the summit, the acid entered the chambers, oh yes, and the device worked. Boom! Just as well I chose the summit for the site of the explosion, my friend, yes indeed. Imagine the chaos and death had I exploded it at the base of the hill. Might have brought down the whole cliff!’
‘The cliff came down regardless,’ Noetos said.
Omiy looked shamefaced. ‘Ah yes, well, my mistake. More chalk and soapstone in Saros Rake than in Eisarn Pit. How was I to know it would shatter like that? You said to create a diversion, yes, you did. A diversion was created. I remain your servant, eager to please you.’
Laid out like that, his explanation sounded reasonable. For a while after the explosion Noetos had suspected Omiy…but no. The alchemist had rejected the chance to steal the huanu stone back in Eisarn Pit. Had protected him and Bregor, in fact, from the other miners.
‘Very well, there’s nothing more to be said about it,’ Noetos pronounced. At this dismissal the alchemist leapt to his feet and rushed out the door. That eager to escape my company. Am I really that fierce? And the deeper question: what have I made of myself?
A faint noise distracted him from his musing. The metallic scrape of a blade as it was drawn from a scabbard, a noise his soldier’s mind was attuned to. Before he had a moment to question its source he was on his feet, hand on his own sword-hilt.
Papunas walked through the open door of the chandlery, his sword in his hand. That was the moment Noetos should have attacked, when the overseer was framed by the door, but surprise and disbelief stole his awareness. By the time ten miners had filed in behind him, it was too late.
‘We’ve come for answers to our questions, and for payment,’ Papunas said.
‘Payment? And what payment do I receive for saving your countrymen?’ Noetos asked bitterly.
‘Y’get to live,’ Papunas said. But the look in the overseer’s eyes told Noetos otherwise.
‘Where is Seren? My sworn men?’
‘Sent ‘em off to escort the Makyra Bay lot back south. Told ‘em it was your orders.’
A lie. The villagers wouldn’t need escorting. His men would not have taken orders from Papunas. They were too smart for that. Weren’t they? Oh, Alkuon.
And where is Anomer?
That last question, at least, was answered swiftly.
‘What is this?’ his son asked, as another of the miners thrust him through the doorway, a hand clamped firmly on his shoulder. ‘Father, what is happening?’
‘You are coinage,’ Noetos said, and launched himself at the miner holding his son. Six paces covered in an instant, fuelled by a rage finally let loose, a powerful overhand chop taking the miner’s arm at the shoulder before the man could shield himself behind Anomer. A scream, the spurt of hot blood.
Noetos found his mind completely clear; he threw himself down and snatched the miner’s sword from the floor. It will cost me, but I must have it. A sword struck at him, a clumsy blow that scored across his back, biting deep enough to draw blood, a fire of pain. Noetos twisted away from the miner who had made the blow, reached up, grabbed his son by the wrist and dragged him back into the centre of the room, handed him the miner’s sword and stood there, panting.
Alkuon, the pain. He forced himself to speak.
‘How much will the stone cost you?’ he cried, barely making himself heard over the piteous screams of the miner trying to quench the flow of his lifeblood. ‘You’ve lost one man already. Come on, who will be next?’
This could go one of two ways…
With a shrill cry Papunas charged, followed by the others. Too tempting a prize to forsake now. He’d hoped to bleed their courage out.
No matter.
Anomer and Noetos met them, swords raised, blocking the furious blows that fell on them. The fisherman tried a counter-stroke, realising instantly that the wound on his back would not allow him to fully extend his sword arm. Only one chance now. He propelled himself into the nearest miner, careless of the man’s sword, getting inside his reach, hitting him on the chin with the flat of his hand. Bones cracked. A swift sword thrust saw the man down.
Anomer!
No time to turn, he could not risk even a glance. He directed a vicious blow at one man’s face, opening it; he turned his stroke into a defensive parry, barely avoiding a killing blow. The tip of an opponent’s sword took Noetos in the thigh, penetrating two fingers’-width. The man’s sword remained fixed in his flesh a moment too long. Noetos hammered him in the solar plexus with his elbow, then swept the blade across the man’s neck before he began to double over. The miner raised a futile hand to his throat, trying to hold the wound closed, then slipped on his own blood, falling backwards to foul the legs of two miners behind him.
Too slow, too clumsy, any competent swordsman would have dispatched you before now. Cyclamere the critic. ‘I know,’ Noetos said as he stepped over his dying opponent and stabbed the two fallen miners through their throats, one, two; both lives ended by greed. ‘It’s just as well they are not competent, then.’
The fisherman eased himself backwards, gaining a moment’s respite, his head twisting from side to side, searching for more opponents. His eyes fastened on Anomer. Six miners encircled his son, ready to strike. No other movement in the Chandlery.
‘Give us the stone, fisherman, or we’ll kill him,’ Papunas said.
‘No, father!’ Anomer shouted. ‘Trust me! Stay where you are!’
The words bit at him with all the force of a geas. Nevertheless, the fisherman shrugged them off, rejecting his son’s sacrificial gesture, and launched himself towards the miners.
‘Slow, slow, your limbs are as lead,’ Anomer said in a Voice as clear, as sharp-edged, as broken crystal. The power of the words washed over Noetos but could not take hold of him.
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