Kitabı oku: «Hero Grown», sayfa 3

Einarr was respectful. ‘Your Imperial Majesty, I am grateful for your prompt granting of our request for an audience. My only sadness is that the purpose of my visit to your court is to bear grave tidings from the North.’

Inwardly, Brann smiled as glee coursed through him. Loku was to be revealed for what he was at the first opportunity. The man must feel desperate to flee, were an escape route possible. Which there wasn’t. Which made it all the more enjoyable.

The Emperor smiled, his eyes creasing in friendship. ‘Be not sad, Lord of the North. I know exactly why you are here. I like your directness, and feel I already like you also.

‘Which makes me, in turn, sad. Sad that you should die.’

At the last word, the weapons of the soldiers around them snapped down, caging them in a box of spear points. Instinctively, the hands of Einarr, Konall and their two warriors dropped to their weapons, while the other three, unarmed, felt helplessness join the shock slamming against them. Spears plunged into the two Northern warriors from behind, Magnus dying instantly and Torstein suffering a further thrust to the chest before his gasping croaks of rage and swinging sword were stopped. Scattered shrieks from the gathered throng were surprisingly sparse, and there was none of the scrambling for safety that Brann would have expected from such a gathering of affluent citizenry, people whose self-regard generally equates with overwhelming self-preservation. Instead, an excited curiosity seemed to suffuse them.

‘I find that I like you, Lord Einarr, so I would advise you and your young cousin to remove your hands from your weapons, otherwise you shall, indeed, share the fate of your two men. Had you listened properly, I said that you “should” die. I have yet to decide if you will.’

The battle-experience Einarr had gathered over the years had kept him focused. His eyes fixed on those of the Emperor, he eased back to beside Konall and rested a hand on the boy’s right arm, gently easing it away from his sword hilt.

His voice remained calm and controlled. ‘Can I ask your thinking, Emperor? Two good men have just bled out their lives over what I can only imagine is a misunderstanding.’

‘There is no misunderstanding, Lord Einarr. I would invite you to walk with me. Your party may accompany you.’

He stood, the Scribe following his every pace as he moved towards the edge of the roof. Soldiers moved in around them and expertly and quickly divested them of weapons. They were allowed to walk to beside where the Emperor stood facing the view, kept by a row of gleaming metal several paces from his right side. Such had been Brann’s fixation on the people until this moment that it was only now that he became aware that the rooftop was exactly that, and no more: a perfectly flat surface, unadorned with any protuberance and, most significantly, no wall around its edge. The sides dropped abruptly away to the ground far below, escalating the impression of height and overwhelming him with vulnerability. He was acutely aware of the hot wind that plucked at his tunic but felt like a gale, and of the grainy surface that now seemed as treacherous as an icy slope. Born in a country of hills and dales, he had never been one to be nervous while standing at the edge of a drop. Until now.

The Emperor was unperturbed. His voice was calm. ‘The city you passed through, that lies below us, is the greatest in the world. The land you see stretching before you, as far as your eyes can see from this loftiest of viewpoints, is but a grain of sand to the expanse of my Empire. Your mind cannot comprehend the number of people who fall under my control, who rely on my will. This,’ he touched the circlet nestling among his thick hair and which Brann now saw was wrought to resemble a twisted branch that almost met at the front, ‘reminds me of the first olive tree our forebears planted here when they ceased to wander these lands and settled this spot.’ Brann had no idea what an olive tree was, but the meaning was clear. The Emperor lifted the links of the heavy gold around his neck. ‘And this reminds me of the fact that I may have been elevated to be the first of all in this Empire, but in doing so I am in thrall to the Empire, a slave in service to the survival and flourishing of ul-Taratac.’

He turned slowly to face them, still toying with the chain. His smile was genial, disarming. ‘And in all this expanse of land, in all these teeming hordes of people near and far, do you not think that there will be some who will wish me ill, for whatever reason? Every day, there are attempts planned on my life, but few have made it as close as you did.’

Einarr’s composure slipped at the implication, and his tone was aghast. ‘An attempt on your life? On the contrary, Your Imperial Majesty, as well as the events in the North, I would tell you of a viper in your midst.’ He pointed directly at Loku, who looked worryingly unconcerned. ‘That man is the danger to you. That treacherous dog is one of the reasons we are here.’

The Emperor laughed. ‘That treacherous dog, as you describe him, is the reason I stay alive. How do you think I avoid these many and ofttimes highly ingenious attempts to kill me? Because I know of them. And how do I know? Because this treacherous dog, or Taraloku-Bana, to afford him his real name, operates for me a wonderfully efficient and effective network that gathers information from every conceivable source. His people bring me the real news of my Empire and, when the situation warrants it, he will gather the information for me personally, as he did in this case. I have him to thank for knowing of the discord you and your family have sown in the North, to try to lure my millens northwards to restore the order necessary for trade, whereupon, claiming invasion, you would seek to weaken my forces. On finding that my man had discovered your purpose, you tried to kill him and instead came here to seek to kill me directly. It is not complicated.’

‘Why in the name of all the gods would we want to do that?’ Einarr was incredulous. ‘What could we gain from it?’

The Emperor looked puzzled. ‘Ah yes, of course. We Southerners are slow of thought. We could not see your purpose. We could not envisage that, were the Empire to be destabilised, even short-term chaos would open up trade routes to your people currently controlled, carefully and for the benefit of all, by Sagia. The more you profited, the more powerful you would become, and the more you could work to establish your trade in the South. And so on, and so on. You would never rise to rival the might of the Empire, but you would have become strong enough to hold an influential bargaining position when the Empire settled back to normality.’ His hand fluttered on high, as if scattering thoughts to the wind. ‘But of course, we Southerners could never have divined that. Our arrogance would have convinced us that nothing could affect the Empire.’

Einarr’s eyes blazed with cold fury. ‘Emperor, you have been duped.’

There was an angry growl and the spear points surged forward. Kalos raised a hand and they stopped in an instant, but still the tension hung heavy. The smile remained, as easy and warm as ever. ‘Have a care, Lord Einarr. Speak like that to an Emperor and you risk your life being measured in seconds.’

‘Are we not dead men regardless, Majesty?’ This time the title was spat out.

‘Not you, nor your cousin. To put to death such high-ranking nobles as yourselves would be as much an act of war as anything else. I would be forced to acknowledge the attempt on my life and would be expected to send my soldiers north as a result, thereby allowing your people to achieve their original objective.’ He sighed. ‘Much as I would relish your death, I must place the good of the Empire ahead of my personal enjoyment. Far better to hold you and your cousin here as our, shall we say, guests until your father confirms in writing what your plans had been, then you can be ransomed back with certain conditions attached. So you two can be taken below to your chambers. The others can travel down by quicker means.’

He waved a nonchalant hand at the roof’s edge as he turned back towards his throne. Brann’s knees almost buckled at the horror and he fought to prevent his stomach from heaving, determined not to disgrace his people in the face of such injustice. Levelled spears prompted a shouting Einarr and Konall in one direction and Brann, Hakon and Grakk on a very different path.

A scream rent the air, followed by horrified shouts from several directions. Every second spear switched in unison towards the sound, the remainder staying with their original orders. More anguish filled the air. Unperturbed by blood and potential execution, members of the watching crowd were apparently able to be shocked by other means.

‘My purse!’

‘My gems!’

‘My Scribe’s satchel!’

‘My purse, too!’

Similar cries came from at least a dozen sources, and Brann saw the blue-clad figure he had earlier noticed moving through the throng slipping quietly towards the edge of the roof. She was spotted and shouts alerted all to her presence. A man of astounding obesity was closest to her, and she slipped, encouraging him to lumber towards her. When he was almost upon her, she spun, her hands a blur and her robes whirling as they unwound around her. She stopped, clad in a close-fitting black outfit, a well-filled bag attached to her waist and her hands filled with the full length of the strip of fabric that had formed the robes. She looped the strip around the fat man and ran backwards, the loose ends of the strip feeding through either hand. She reached the edge and without hesitation dropped from sight, the fabric still running through her hands, leaving Brann with a fleeting impression of dark hair tied back to hang to the nape of her neck and even darker eyes flashing with triumph. The fat Sagian fought in a panic to avoid the drop and used his considerable bulk to resist being pulled by the slight girl towards the edge.

Hakon was the only one who reacted to the commotion. Knocking one spear aside with his right hand, he threw himself past it and barged the soldier’s unsuspecting neighbour in the back with his shoulder, his weight and strength combining to knock the man to the ground and his momentum carrying him clear of the guards. He raced the short distance to the point of the girl’s exit, arriving a moment after she had dropped from sight.

The archers drew, but with the primary function of protecting the Emperor, they were stationed behind him to have a target area covering any who would come straight at him, and their view of Hakon was blocked by scores of people.

With the briefest of glances back, he shouted, ‘I’ll alert our crew,’ and dropped over the edge, grabbing at the strips of cloth that had, a breath before, slowed the thief’s descent. His large frame was, however, more of a challenge for the bulk of the fat man who had been used by the girl. His eyes wide and his face the same crimson as the sleeves of his robes, his feet scrabbled desperately at the treacherous purchase on the sand-strewn smooth stone of the roof, but it was a battle he was fast losing. As Hakon disappeared from sight, the man abruptly shot forward and was cast, like a boulder from a giant’s sling, into the void beyond the edge of the roof.

As his howl receded with him, Brann had rushed to the side of the building, his terror of the emptiness beyond forgotten as he saw his friend disappear. On hands and knees, he craned his neck to see the girl thief on one of the balconies of the Throne Room below them, black rope in hand, astonishment written clear on her face as she didn’t know whether to look first at the fat man in billowing robes, screaming and grasping at air, who was plummeting past her, or the large Northerner who had landed beside her. The disappearance of the former and the continuing presence of the latter, who grinned cheerfully, clapped her on the back and pointed helpfully at the rope, returned her attention to the task at hand and, with the quick hands of the skilled thief she had already proved to be, the rope was looped around the balustrade and secured to itself with a metal hook at one end. Before it had even finished uncoiling, she was already sliding down it, swinging inwards as she neared its end to land on a similar balcony two floors below the one they had started from. She was followed closely, but rather less gracefully, by her new companion and, as soon as Hakon landed, a practised snap of her wrist set the rope to snaking above her until the hook flicked free and the line dropped. She was already using a hook at the other end to secure the rope to that balustrade and, in seconds, the pair of escapees was five balconies below the rooftop.

The girl repeated her trick with the rope and, as she gathered it in, Hakon leant into view and waved happily, with all the demeanour of a farm lad leaving for a weekly trip to market. The pair disappeared from view, and Brann realised that the whole episode had probably taken less than a minute. Soldiers, who had received orders and had been racing along the roof, had reached the stairs to the level below.

‘Well, that was entertaining.’ The Emperor’s amused voice was so close to Brann’s left that it was easy to forget that there was a line of spearmen between them. ‘A merchant whose financial success raises him to a form of nobility is usually more of an onlooker in my court than an integral part of such excitement, and his children will be delighted with their inheritance, I am sure. And I suppose it is nice for you to have a thrilling distraction to take your mind off your execution.’

‘It is more than a distraction,’ Brann blurted. ‘Whatever happens to me, at least I know that my friend will live and our ship will carry news of this atrocity to our people.’

‘Oh dear boy, your naive optimism is endearing. Under other circumstances, I might have been minded to let you live merely to watch how long you could maintain it in the face of reality.’ The Emperor sounded as if he would have ruffled Brann’s hair. He sighed deeply. ‘These are not, however, other circumstances. And my men will capture those two before long.’

Brann was defiant. With his fate decided, he found he had strength to snarl at an Emperor. He stood. ‘Those two have a head start on your men.’

He received a shrug in reply. ‘Fine. Say they evade all and somehow escape to the city. Say they reach the ship before the units I have already marching on the docks. Say they somehow gather the crew, still before the soldiers arrive. They will not clear the harbour, and will be forced to settle in the city. What matter to me another few foreigners added to those from throughout the world who have made a home in the districts of this city of a thousand thousand souls? Another few dozen who want me dead? Most here are content to live their lives, and the malcontents either are lost in the crowd or rooted out by my good servant Taraloku-Bana and his excellent people.’

Unconcerned about the drop, the Emperor peered over the edge. ‘That unfortunate man has scattered his blood over quite an area. If you are bored on the way down, you could always see if you could manage to land in it.’ He nodded, and the spears moved forward to force him and Grakk over the edge. Brann found himself considering the irony of the prospect. While never having any fear of heights, he had always suffered from a morbid terror of the feeling of dropping, of the helplessness of the fall. When his friends had spent summer afternoons jumping from a rocky ledge above the river that ran through their valley, he had splashed in the water below encouraging them. Now he was being forced from the top of a building higher than he could have imagined was possible to build.

He eyed the spear points. Throwing himself forward at the right moment would be a quicker death and wouldn’t involve the drop. Bracing his legs to lunge, he found an overpowering self-preservation freezing his muscles. Whatever the logic of his head, his instinct was to fight to survive at all costs, and he cast about instead for an opening, a chance to pass the metal points and inflict any damage he could before they put an end to it. But the spears came on. His mind whirled and his body took over, his legs tensing for movement born of panic.

An order barked out and the soldiers stopped. Brann froze, then glanced across. The Emperor was standing with his arm aloft.

The Scribe was standing behind him, as was Loku, though a respectful distance further back than the slave. The Emperor seemed delighted. ‘My Source of Information has just offered a suggestion through my Chief Scribe, my Recorder of Information. It seems an excellent idea to me, a fact that has a bearing somewhat on the likelihood of it coming to fruition. You see, we have a fine tradition of gladiatorial contests here in Sagia, occasions that provide much-loved entertainment for the citizens of this city. There is one such occasion tomorrow, and I would be most grateful if you two would be a part of it. My friend Taraloku-Bana feels that it would be most entertaining to see the bald native fight, and even more entertaining to see you, the talkative one, die. You will both, of course, still die, but,’ he smiled warmly, ‘you have another whole day of life ahead of you. Is that not a wonderful gift?’

‘Why do you want so much for us to be dead?’ Brann’s voice was almost a hoarse whisper. ‘You didn’t care when my friend escaped. You don’t care if the crew are captured or not. Why are you so set on seeing us die?’

The Emperor’s smile remained, but his brow creased in puzzlement. ‘Oh, you don’t actually understand, do you? I have no interest at all in whether you live or die. Your existence is a thousand levels lower than mine.’ He smiled. ‘You see, you were only going over the edge as a matter of convenience. You were unnecessary, and someone would have tidied you away at the bottom. But now it is time for you to leave in a different manner, and we are promised some entertainment. This day has proved far more pleasant than I had anticipated.’

Without another word, he walked away, conferring briefly with his Scribe and pointing at the soldier whose spear had been knocked aside by Hakon. A squad surrounded Brann and Grakk, escorting them away without fuss, walking behind the crowds. Before the Emperor had retaken his seat, the soldier had been flung from the roof.

Chapter 2

The two slaves gestured from their hearts to him before leaving him at his door. He wondered if they really did extend their hearts to him; whether they cared at all for him beyond the orders they were given. He wondered if those orders were to provide the escort to his chambers that his status demanded, or to ensure he didn’t wander the passages aimlessly on a path formed by mindless old age.

She waited by his chair, water ready for his return.

‘You saw him?’ Her voice whispered across the room.

His feet scuffed the dust into a dance as he shuffled to his chair. ‘I saw him.’

‘As did I. Will you visit him? Or have him brought here?’

‘Are you mad, woman?’ He was torn between incredulity and anger at such stupidity. ‘When did I last travel into the city?’

For the first time since she had entered his life, there was uncertainty in her voice. ‘It is not the lordling? The one held in this building? But you said you had seen the one we await.’

‘I did. And I will see him tomorrow. At the Arena.’

‘So you will travel to the city after all?’ Her feeble attempt at scoring a point betrayed her disconcertion.

‘You know as well as I that it is hardly a trip to the Pleasure Quarter or the market. Being borne across the Bridge of the Sky into the Emperor’s section in the Arena will not even see me leave the Royal precincts.’

She poured water for him, the time she took appearing less due to care and more to the need to gather her thoughts. ‘You seem sure about this, but I cannot see the one we await being a native of the Tribe of the Desert. It has nothing of the right feel.’

‘Your feeling is correct. It is not of the tribesman that I speak.’

‘The boy? Are you succumbing to your years after all?’

His voice was calm. He was enjoying this. ‘My sword arm may be weak, but my mind is still sharper than those who think they are rulers and, it seems, than yours. You see the whole tapestry, crone, but you do not focus on the individual stitches that form the images. I saw, today. I noticed. He is the one.’

The ewer shattered on the stone floor. ‘A wind stirs the mist of my vision,’ she gasped. ‘I see the face. You are right.’

He smiled.

****

The walk through the streets was longer than their travel to the citadel had been, and was considerably less salubrious. The soldiers encased them in a shell of armour and sharp edges, with no option but to tramp along between them on a journey where time was stretched by never knowing when the end would be reached but always knowing that misery waited at that destination.

He was a slave again. He waited for despair that never came. He steeled himself to suppress an anger, futile anger, anger that never rose. He prepared to resist a wave of injustice that never washed over him. He wondered at their absence, but all he felt was relief.

He was still alive.

Right now, at this moment, he walked in captivity, but he walked feeling the ground beneath his feet and the sun on his head. He lifted his face to feel the heat, to catch the slightest breeze on his skin, to see the endless blue of the sky. Movement caught his eye and he saw Grakk looking at him in question.

‘Better a slave who breathes than a corpse who is free,’ Brann said.

‘Some would differ.’

Brann shrugged. ‘There is no freedom in death, only a certainty of no more life. Death steals the chance of change. To choose to die nobly rather than live to seize an opportunity to make things better, well…’ He shrugged. ‘I can only think that those who make such a choice would think otherwise should they consider it longer than the impetuous moment. I fear stepping from a great height in despair and finding halfway down that I wished I could fly.’

Grakk grunted. ‘You are quite the philosopher today. That is good, I was preparing my words to drag you back from despair and let you use all available time to prepare for tomorrow, but you have spared me that.’

The thought of tomorrow settled both into silence. Brann turned his face to the sky again. While I live, I will fight to live. What other way is there?

He was unable to see much of the city past the bulk of their escort, but it was clear that the more they travelled, the more the affluence melted away. The areas they began to pass through became dustier, the white of the walls was more cracked, the footing was increasingly uneven. They passed through a great old gate in the city wall, one not frequented by merchants and in fact, if the current level of activity was typical, not frequented by many people at all other than a couple of bored guards who pretended not to be close to dozing when they noticed the approach of the soldiers. They descended a wide ramp, its surface weathered and flaking in places, carved into the face of the bluff that Sagia sat upon and, a short distance after they had left the city proper, the houses started again, some with a small untended garden area, some crammed against each other, and all little more than shacks. A length of empty land had wild shrubbery, gnarled, twisted and fighting the dry ground, growing alongside the road where it was fed by the occasional use of the gutter, before they passed in front of a long wall, around the height of a man and a half as much again, its top a series of curving dips that was itself topped with railings cut to set the spiked tips at a uniform level. While dry grasses and wild plants gathered at its foot, matching the determined but sparse plant life of the scrubland that stretched into the distance opposite, the metal of the railings was well tended and the wall looked solid.

They stopped at an arched gateway midway along the wall’s length, and one of the soldiers banged on a door cut into the wood of the gate. A symbol was burnt into the smaller door, two short horizontal lines crossing close to the end of one longer vertical one, forming the simplistic shape of a sword with a flat pommel, with that symbol beside an inverted version of itself. Above it a grill was filled with the glower of a guard’s face as he checked the source of the knocking. With an unimpressed grunt, he opened the door and was passed a note. Spear points were levelled and Brann and Grakk were prompted through the doorway, where three more guards waited, all in identical red tunics with the same symbol on the front and back as was on the gate. Shields, both round and squared, lay carelessly to the side but swords of simple quality were strapped to their hips. Without a word or a glance, the soldiers marched back the way they had come, their feet beating an even beat on the hard track.

The guard, as tall as Hakon but even broader of shoulder and chest, looked them up and down. ‘Not the most impressive arrivals we’ve ever had, I must admit. Still, you’re here, so I’d as well introduce you to the boss.’ He glanced at the note in his hand, and grinned cheerfully. ‘I see you are fighting death bouts tomorrow, so you could probably get away with not bothering to have to try to remember everybody’s names until after that, if you see what I mean.’ He slapped Brann on the back. ‘Every cloud, and all that, eh? But if you can remember one name, you might as well make it Cassian’s. He’s the boss. Hence the name of this place: the School of Cassian. Makes sense, eh? Why not? If you can remember another name, I’m Salus. Salus the Silent, on account that I’m not. I like to remind the world that I’m alive. Especially myself.’

He steered them up a wide straight pathway of white loose stones that crunched with every step. It ran a short way to a wide, two-storey building, as white-walled and red-roofed as every other structure in the city. The path widened at the building and, to one side, a cart of provisions was being unloaded. Brann looked appreciatively at the two horses in the traces, their heads bowed into buckets of water and the tail of one lifting to drop shit on the carefully maintained path.

After coming so close to death, giddiness was coursing through him and he laughed as he nudged Grakk and nodded at the scene. ‘So much for order everywhere and everything being controlled!’

Grakk looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘You forget you will most probably die tomorrow?’

Brann shrugged. ‘I just can’t forget that I should be dead just now. But I’m not.’

Grakk was unconvinced.

Salus, however, was more appreciative. ‘That’s the spirit, lad. Take each moment as it comes, and don’t plan too far ahead. Cassian likes a happy place, that he does. Uncle Cass, we often call him, as he’s like the favourite uncle you hear about other people having and wish you had yourself. Well, you do now. For a day at least. Come and let’s find him.’

They entered the cool of the building and were directed by a servant along a side corridor. ‘Down here we go,’ Salus informed them. ‘I forgot the time of day. The boss is bathing.’

‘He’s what?’ Brann thought the word sounded a bit rude.

Amusement had started to break through the melancholy in Grakk’s eyes. ‘It is similar to washing.’

‘Well why didn’t he say that?’

Grakk did actually smile this time. ‘You will see.’

A guard stood before a heavy door. Salus nodded to him and entered, motioning for Brann and Grakk to wait where they were as a cloud of steam drifted past. Moments later, he reappeared, affable as ever. Wary as he was after the encounter with the Emperor of words delivered with a smile, still Brann couldn’t help but warm to the man. He frowned slightly at that before his thoughts were interrupted by their subject. ‘You can come now,’ Salus said, beckoning.

The steam swirled as they entered but was filtering quickly out through vents in the ceiling, allowing Brann to see a tiled antechamber, the walls on either side stepped back in two stages to allow wooden benches to run the length of the room and then, higher, a shelf that bore a pile of towels at one end. A pile of clothing lay strewn on one bench.

Salus strode across slatted wooden flooring that kept their feet raised above the treacherous-looking slippery tiles of the floor beneath. An opening at the far end saw them descend two steps into a much bigger room, the source of the steam with three large water-filled tanks producing more swirling clouds that rose to similar vents in this ceiling, every inch of the space around them covered in more of the wooden flooring. High-set windows, long and narrow, let further steam out and dazzling beams of sunlight in, sparkling the water in the tanks that were square, set in line and each around the size of the Captain’s cabin back on the Blue Dragon. Brann resolved to find a new unit of measurement – the thought of the excited anticipation of the voyage to this city had stabbed a pain in the heart of his chest. He clenched his fists to steady his thoughts.

The centre tank held a man. Sitting on what must have been a ledge and arms spread to either side as they rested on the edge of the pool, his face split into a huge toothy grin as he saw them enter. ‘Welcome to my school, however long or, I suppose, short your stay may be. Your presence here may be enforced, but is no less appreciated for it.’ He looked through narrowed eyes. ‘You know, do you not, that the Empire intends you to die tomorrow.’ The matter-of fact delivery from a stranger cut to where Grakk’s words had not and Brann’s spirit was sucked from him in the instant. His knees buckled and only the reactions of Grakk and Salus allowed them to grab his arms in time to keep him upright. The older man smiled gently. ‘It therefore, of course, becomes our greatest desire to see the Empire disappointed. Many of our guests here arrived as a result of the will of the Empire, but you two are the first to face a death match.’ His smile faded slightly. ‘In your case, we are not allowed over-much time to assist you with this, but should you return tomorrow, you will be afforded our full hospitality.’ He smiled broadly again, and Brann began to wonder if he and Salus were related or even if everyone in this compound had been partaking of the sort of fungi that grew in certain areas of the woods near his village. ‘I trust Salus the Silent has taken good care of you?’