Blood and Gold

by Ben Blake

  *

  He was dreaming, standing beside Farajalla on a ship in a wide sunlit ocean, with dolphins breasting the waves as they raced alongside. She laughed in delight and he smiled, content simply to watch her, but then she put a hand on his arm and he woke to find her there beside the bed, myriad black braids hanging over one side of her face.

  Sleep left him all in a moment. He began to push himself up on his elbows, wide awake and rested, and she placed quick fingers against his lips. She didn’t speak, but he read a strange mix of hope and urgent fear in her dark eyes, and he stopped moving and waited for her to explain.

  “Not a word,” she whispered. “Oh, my love, not a word. You must trust me.”

  He nodded slowly, not understanding. She took her fingers from his lips then, and sitting on the edge of the bed she reached up to her cream shirt and fumbled with the buttons. She was clumsy enough to pull one off, and then another, which he’d never known her do before. He opened his mouth and her fingers shot to his lips again, pushing them back against his teeth. He hesitated but was silent, wondering, as she slipped out of her clothes with her gaze on his face all the while. His eyes followed her movements, helpless as sand in the wind, and his breath caught. In an instant her hand covered his mouth again, though this time he hadn’t meant to speak. He saw her realise that, and then she stood and slid the divided skirts past her hips and into a ragged heap on the floor.

  She stretched herself out half on top of him, smooth as falling water, and ran a hand down his bare chest.

  “You are all my world,” she said, her voice trembling. He could not remember ever hearing that tone from her before. “And if I am yours, my love, then you will not make a sound.”

  He still didn’t understand, but she was much more than just the world, and he smiled.

  Nine

  They are Coming

  A traveller approaching Mayence from the north or east found the road climbing ever more steeply, until at last it levelled out and emerged from the jumbled hills into a small plain. Fields clustered on either side then, their appearance as sudden as sunlight through a broken window, with little farmhouses piled together here and there from seemingly random materials, and roofed with whatever came to hand. After almost a mile of that the road went over a broad stone bridge with the river Kair rushing beneath, still white and cold after its descent from the Raima Mountains. Sometimes in summer great blocks of ice were moored at the quays, floated down from the heights to adorn the city’s famous iced wine but melting gently in the heat.

  Up from the far bank of the river sloped the side of the plateau on which Mayence itself sat, high above the river behind a tall wall set regularly with towers. A little distance from the centre was a shallow mound, the highest point within the city, and there the Margraves had built their seat.

  The citizens called it the Manse. To visitors, come to gape at the splendours of the jewel of a city nestled at the feet of the mountains, it was simply a palace. Many kings owned no house so large or fine. It was public confirmation of the wealth of Mayence, and so of its Margraves, and impossible not to notice. It rose above the city, just as the city rose above the plain. Deeper within the Aiguille there were more precipitous crags, some with fortresses perched on them like great stone eagles, but nothing anywhere near as big.

  The view from the Manse’s eastern balcony was reputed to be one of the finest in the world. The city spread out below, a crowding mass of buildings kept apart by the four wide avenues which ran to a central plaza just in front of the Manse. Smaller squares were dotted here and there, some crammed with the striped awnings of traders’ stalls. There were chapels of the All-Church, and tulip-domed towers atop temples to Anu of the Madai, who some said was just God in another suit of clothes. In amongst them were two types of shrine to the Jaidi star god, one for those on each side of the schism of a century ago, and who could fathom the intricacies of that? Even the minarets looked the same. The desert people said that the star god was Anu too, at least in origins, but the faiths were so surrounded by different rituals that it was hard to know. Religion was never far away in Mayence. It was enough to make a man’s head ache.

  Every chapel tower was matched by a carved minaret, every flat roof by an onion dome. There was even one of those perched atop the Hall of Voices where the city fathers met to discuss the city’s complex affairs, brilliant crimson in the spring sunshine. Mayence had no difficulty embracing different ways. It had done so first to survive, and now did so because it had made them its own.

  There were ordinary homes as well, of course, though recently money had been set aside to redevelop some areas where crowding had become especially severe, or where the sewers had broken down completely. That had led to the innovation of building many homes in a single large block, each storey smaller than the one below to allow residents to enjoy little rooftop gardens, or useful vegetable plots. Space was at a premium in Mayence, hemmed in as it was by vital fields on one side and the rocky sprawl of the Aiguille on the other. The tenements had provided a solution, at least for a time. One day, if Mayence kept growing, there would simply be no more room, and the homeless and dispossessed would cluster in ragtag temporary shelters outside the walls, however often the Guard cleared them away. One of the lessons of the city’s growth was that ambitious provincials would always want to come to the capital. Even Parrien was not usually good enough. It had not, after all, been good enough for Ando Gliss.

  He had advised Riyand to spend some time each summer in the harbour town, perhaps even to build a summer residence there. That might encourage more growth there, instead of allowing it all to focus on Mayence. So far the Margrave hadn’t done so, and Ando was reluctant to raise the matter again. Riyand had enough people nagging at him to do this or that, behave in such and such a way: he didn’t need the same from Ando.

  Beyond the river Kair lay farms, and then to the east the scattered buildings of the monastery an earlier Margrave had ordered built, almost a hundred years ago in the midst of a sprawling orchard. Apparently the All-Church had wanted the site because it helped achieve tranquillity. Only two structures rose above the leaves; the tower of the main dormitory building, and the spire of the chapel itself. It had been prudent to build such a large and imposing structure for the All-Church priests, to allay the suspicions which grew like mushrooms in their minds. Margraves had even gone to worship there from time to time.

  Further away yet the land rose in a broad vista of half-barren hills with olive groves and vineyards trying to clamber up their sides. At the very limit of vision it was possible, on a clear day, to see a distant gleam that was sunlight on the windows of Parrien, and espy the thin blue strip of the sea. Today there was a light haze, spring pollen hovering in the air, so the hills faded into a blur of brown and green. That didn’t really matter to Ando, as long as Riyand was near.

  He knew people talked, of course. He would have to be a complete fool not to. Tongues wagged all the time, spreading tales of the dissolute Margrave and his lover, while a wife sat forgotten in her chambers and busied herself with embroidery or tapestry, or whatever it was such women were expected to do. Certainly the servants chattered, as they did all over the world. There was no way to stop it. So everyone seemed to know Riyand of Mayence preferred to share his bed with men – well, with one man, anyway – and in this world of warlike lords and pinch-lipped priests, that could be dangerous.

  So while Riyand stood at the balcony rail and looked out over his city, a wine glass in one hand, Ando stayed back and out of sight, and all that well-known view was denied him. No need to give the rumour-mongers fresh gossip to feed on. From far below they would look up at their lord, a well-made man with coiffed black hair and a narrow beard that followed the line of his jaw, and while they might wonder if Ando was there they would not know for certain. It was better so, and Ando was content enough.

  He knew Riyand hated the talk of the commons. One that particularly annoyed him was the claim that his wif
e, Ilenia, was still a virgin even after ten years of marriage. Ando doubted it, though he had never asked: it was simply that on occasion Riyand went to his wife’s chambers late in the evening, usually after a fair amount of wine, and it didn’t take much imagination to understand why. But there was still no sign of a child, and no sign that Ilenia would take a lover to give her one. Ando had considered finding a nameless youth on the streets, some thug or other with more muscles than brains, to sire a child on her. But he had shied away from it because of those wagging tongues; someone would be bound to see, or to hear, and the talk would begin. Or the thug himself would boast about it one night, deep in his cups. It would be easier for Ando to do it himself, if it could be arranged, though his mind flinched at the thought. He had no more interest in women than Riyand did.

  Something had to be done, though. Riyand’s brother Bohend had died young, victim of the plague that had swept through Sarténe twenty years ago and filled the graveyards with a carrion stink. Riyand was the younger, surplus to requirements, and probably destined for the clergy of the All-Church – not that his father held any love for the Basilica or its priests, but it was another way to turn suspicion aside. Nobody had bothered to teach Riyand how to hold a sword, or handle the intricate politics that permeated every land on God’s earth. There was no point. The clergy would teach him what he needed to know.

  And then suddenly Riyand was heir to Mayence, thirteen years old and almost completely untutored. His time had always been his own and he spent it as he chose: painting, for which he had a rare talent, or walking in the woods before an evening shared with whichever poets and singers happened to be nearby. All that changed in the space of one grim autumn. After the plague Riyand’s days were crammed with lessons on statecraft and decorum, rhetoric and the classics, and any time left over was spent in the tiltyard behind the barracks, getting bruised and cut as he struggled to learn the sword.

  For which, Ando had to admit, his lover definitely did not have a talent, rare or otherwise. He wasn’t even a very good rider. It might have been different if Riyand had first begun to practice the sword when he was eight, as his brother had done, though personally Ando doubted it. Some men picked up a sword for the first time as adults, and yet quickly became fighters to be feared. Others started as young boys and never learned the knack; in battle they were liabilities, kept alive only by the efforts of men dedicated to the purpose. Riyand held the sword as though afraid it would bite him. He might conceivably be able to kill another man, but probably not because he was trying to.

  That thought turned Ando’s mind to Calesh Saissan, and events at the pissant little inn at the harbour five days ago. There was a man born to fight. In many ways Calesh was exactly as Ando had imagined him, tall, with shoulders like a roof beam, and wearing command as though trained to it from the cradle. Perhaps he should have been the Margrave’s son, and Riyand a farmer’s boy; at least then Riyand could have become a musician or painter, which was so clearly where his talents lay. One of God’s jokes, that.

  Yet Calesh was different too, harder and more direct, with little patience for the fripperies and distractions of everyday life. Ando had put the words of a speech in the man’s mouth in The Lay of Gidren Field, and the words now seemed clumsy and inappropriate;

  Be not afraid, though others quail

  Come with me and shape a tale

  Of glorious gallantry.

  We stand today with God’s good grace

  To shelter us, and in this place

  Pride will humbled be!

  Put fear aside

  We’ve turned the tide

  Now rise, and follow me.

  Ando suspected that Calesh would not have said anything like that, if he made a speech at all. Certainly he would not have referred to glorious gallantry. Stick by me, lads was about as eloquent as he was likely to get, in the moments when his soldiers prepared for a charge: what they called a dragonnade. He was all competence and no romance – which was no bad thing for a soldier, perhaps, but extremely frustrating for a poet.

  You could improve those lyrics with an axe, he’d said, back in Parrien. The worst thing was that now, having met the man, Ando almost agreed.

  “If the message is what I think it will be,” Riyand said from by the rail, “I’m afraid I might have led Sarténe to disaster.” His voice was light, a man’s tone but gently so, more the voice of a baritone than a tenor. “My father would have been so much better able than me to face this. Or my brother.”

  “I doubt it of your brother,” Ando said, jolted from his thoughts. “Unless he needed nothing more than to oil his biceps and strike heroic poses. At the first call for intelligence he would have been lost.”

  The Margrave glanced back over his shoulder, amusement playing around his lips. “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, you know.”

  “I do know,” Ando said. “It’s terribly bad luck. No doubt my next opus will be roundly detested by all, and my name will fade back into obscurity before the end of the year.”

  “I will still listen,” Riyand said, and grinned suddenly. “Even if that opus is as detestable as the last one.”

  Ando burst out laughing, surprised by the quip. He took a sip of his own wine, which on this hot spring day was pleasantly chilled. It was relatively easy to fetch ice from the Raima in summer, when the nearest snow-clad peaks were less than twenty miles away. A team of workers stayed in the mountains all year around, cutting ice into blocks to be floated down the Kair on rafts. Summer wine in Mayence was unique because of that. In his regular travels to other lands, even to Rheven in the north where mist clung to the forests and houses were dug into the earth itself, Ando had never encountered anything like it.

  “I wish,” Riyand said quietly, his mirth fading, “that the priest hadn’t been killed. The one by the Rielle,” he added, as though Ando might not know which murdered clergyman he meant. “Everything happening today can be traced back to the idiot who staved his head in.”

  Ando knew that was true, though he didn’t recall Rabast with anything even close to affection. The priest had been the All-Church’s worst sort of fool, arrogant and overbearing, and always rude. He had referred to Riyand’s sexual tastes, barely bothering to be oblique, as foul abominations in the sight of God, and had then repeated the comment at a public dinner. The first was appalling manners, but the second was a blatant insult.

  Ando was saved the need to say any of that when a discreet knock sounded at the inner door, the one that led back into the Manse. He and Riyand turned together, and Ando saw that his lover had turned suddenly pale, the whiteness vivid in the afternoon sunshine.

  “Enter,” Riyand called, his soft voice steady.

  Two men emerged onto the balcony. The first was short and nearly bald, and so thin that his clothes hung loosely about him, which made him look like a scarecrow dressed inexplicably in silks. Not that Cavel had ever cared about such things. He simply served the Margraves, with absolute loyalty and dedication, and given long enough life he would likely still be serving them when God brought an end to the world.

  The second man was taller and bigger built, as all these soldiers seemed to be, though perhaps not as broad-chested as Calesh Saissan. Reis commanded the Guard, and did so ably as far as Ando could judge. Even so, he didn’t trust the soldier the way he trusted Cavel. He had overheard Reis talking once, and the memory had never left him.

  “I served his father, and promised the old wolf I would serve the cub as well,” Reis had said, “but Riyand is a weakling and a fool, quite apart from his… predilections.” His voice thickened with loathing. “And for those he will suffer torments, if there is any grace in God at all.”

  It was not the kind of thing a man could forget, Ando thought, even as he offered both men a neutral smile. They knew Riyand asked for his advice, and often heeded it. He knew they resented that. None of them ever spoke of it.

  “Well?” Riyand asked.

  “I have received word from the ri
ver,” Cavel said. “From two sources, my lord, within minutes of one another. The first is an agent of my own, who reports that the army beyond the Rielle has begun to cross the river on rafts and boats, and anything else they can find that will float.”

  It’s come, Ando thought with a swooping in his stomach. They had all expected it, but the news still hit him like a punch to the belly. Riyand was already pale, but more colour drained from him as Ando watched, and the Margrave steadied himself with a hand on the back of a chair.

  “The second source?” he asked.

  “The All-Church, my lord.” Cavel handed him a sealed letter. “I thought it wise to bring Commander Reis with me, in case this note contains information he ought to know.”

  Riyand’s hand trembled as he took the letter, and he needed two attempts to slice it open with a fingernail. He read, then handed it to Ando, which he had never done before. They were always careful to observe protocol, aware of the men who disliked the life they lived. Riyand had forgotten in his shock, and Ando disregarded it as well and read. He skimmed past his lover’s titles, and over the opening paragraph of greeting, to the meat of the missive below.

  Not only has the rule of Church law been continually flouted in your lands, but you have ignored efforts at rapprochement. We are reliably informed that children are stolen for use in vile ceremonies, at which worshippers spit upon the Cross and deny the divinity of Our Lord, Adjai, the Son of God. Yet you have done nothing to prevent this heresy, and have even encouraged it. We are therefore resolved to tolerate this insult to Heaven no longer.

  The Hierarch declares you expelled from the auspices of the All-Church, and calls Crusade upon your land and your person, that the world may be rid of the obscenity you have fostered. We shall not stop until the last trace of it has been burned from the pages of history.

  The Hierarch calls upon you to repent and make your peace with God, lest your soul be damned forever.

  He passed the letter back to Cavel, who accepted it with a miniscule nod. Ando’s heart was beating very fast.

  “Nobody sacrifices babies.” Riyand’s voice was a stunned whisper. “Where do they hear these things? Who says them?”

  “It doesn’t matter who says them,” Ando said quietly. “Or if anyone does. They’re horrible things to accuse us of, that’s all. A way to make the soldiers in their army see us as devils.”

  “That is correct,” Reis said. “Such accusations are always made when the All-Church has an enemy to defame. It makes their soldiers eager for the fray. They say the same of the Madai and the Jaidi, even today.” He had the letter now, and scowled down at it as though it had insulted him personally. “Well, they are coming, then. What are your orders, my lord?”

  “What are your suggestions?” Riyand asked at once. “Cavel?”

  “I have no suggestions,” the seneschal answered. “You asked me to try to negotiate a settlement, my lord, after Rabast was murdered by the river some months ago. I have indeed tried, as you know, but evidently I have failed.” He pursed his lips regretfully. “I could not even find allies among the kings and nobles. We are alone, my lord, I’m sorry to say.”

  The Margrave gripped the back of the chair. “Reis?”

  “Militarily we cannot face that army,” the general said flatly. This was his moment and he knew it, quite clearly; the time when diplomacy made way for warfare. “Not in the open. They have many times as many men as we can raise, and in a fair fight they will smash us.”

  “Mercenaries?”

  “If the city’s finances will support them,” Reis said.

  “Perhaps a company or two,” Cavel said in his dry voice. “Not enough to make a difference, I’m afraid. We have spent a great deal of money on civic projects. There is little left.”

  “We have to do something!” Riyand shouted.

  Reis looked at him. “And we will, my lord. But that doesn’t mean we should throw away the lives of our soldiers in a futile and doomed attempt to gain a victory we cannot achieve. I suggest,” he raised his voice as Riyand tried to interrupt, “I suggest, my lord, that we send the treasury and our families to a safe place in the mountains, while I gather every soldier I can find. Then we shall defend the Aiguille, if we can, but without offering a fair fight. We know the land, which they do not, and a large army will find it difficult to operate in these hills.”

  Riyand stared at him, breathing hard.

  “That means abandoning the plains and the coast,” Ando said. He was surprised at how calm he sounded.

  “It does,” Reis said.

  “Including Parrien.”

  The general’s smile was grim. “I’m aware of where the coast is, Master Gliss. I can send riders to warn the people of the danger, but no more than that. I will not risk the men.”

  “Then do so,” Riyand said. “Do it your way, commander.”

  Ando had to turn away, so he didn’t have to look at the expression on his lover’s face. He was afraid he was going to be sick and swallowed hard, forcing the nausea back down. He heard Reis and Cavel murmur their respects to Riyand, and then their footfalls moved across the balcony and the door closed behind them, but still he didn’t look up.

  “Sometimes I wish I had been born a farmer,” Riyand said contemplatively from the railing. “A poor farmer with a simple life to lead, untroubled by all these affairs.”

  Ando sighed and made himself turn towards his friend. “You would still be troubled by them, Riyand. The All-Church isn’t coming here for you alone, or merely for the great and the good of Sarténe. They’re coming for all of us, and they will kill all of us. Farmers as well as lords.”

  “And musicians?” the Margrave asked with a quizzical smile.

  “Musicians too,” he said. “I’m afraid that the only songs left to us after this will be songs of sorrow, my dear.”

  “Most of them are anyway. Dreadful dirges of lost love, or pining for things we can never have.” The attempt at levity fell flat, and faded into a familiar introspective expression. “And me, Ando? Would you still love me, if I were no more than a poor, unconcerned farmer?”

  “I would still love you,” Ando said.

  Riyand smiled and held out his arms, and Ando went into them.