by Sarah Ash
‘Sarilla!’ Fear for Laili knifed through him. ‘How – dead?’
‘They say she caught the pestilence … and took poison. Why didn’t she send for me, Lai?’
Pestilence. No wonder Melmeth wanted Laili away from the heat of the city. Suppose it was too late, suppose she had already caught the sickness—
‘And now I’m Torellan of her estates in Mynezhil.’ Silent laughter shook his body. ‘Torellan of some crumbling, deserted kastel and acres upon acres of moorland.’ The laughter ceased. ‘Yes. She left it all to me. And I said some cruel things to her. Needlessly cruel. Now I shall never have the chance to tell her – to tell her I didn’t mean them.’
Lai heard the bitter self-recrimination in Ymarys’s whispered words. His hand slid across the table, closing around Ymarys’s.
‘Burned on the pyre. Ashes and a few charred scraps of bone. Is that all there is, Lai? All that awaits us?’
A shadow appeared behind Ymarys, materialising out of the smoke. Lai blinked, wondering if the insubstantial form were merely drug-induced hallucination.
‘Who is your friend, Ymarys? I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’
The shadow took substance, flesh and bone. Dark hair, striped moon white, floated about his shoulders. Lai felt fingers, light as gossamer, touching his cheek.
‘Lai – meet Jhofiel.’
‘The dancer,’ Lai said. Jhofiel’s floating hair seemed to exude a cloud of boskh; the scent stirred a host of erotic sensations.
‘And you are Lai Dhar. Champion of the arena.’ Jhofiel smiled at him; with dark, enigmatic eyes, hazed with secrets. ‘You saw me dance? I’m flattered.’
Such smokegrey eyes … Lai found himself staring into them, mesmerised.
‘I – we – have to go—’ He heard his voice as if from far away.
‘What’s the hurry? Stay a little longer.’
Soft fingers touched his hair, his face, his throat. His eyes were closing, he was drifting into a drugdaze …
‘N–no.’ He struggled to his feet. ‘Mustn’t stay. Come. Ymarys.’
‘Come where?’ Ymarys said vaguely.
‘Arkhan’s orders.’ Lai caught hold of his arm.
‘Can’t go. Too … too …’Ymarys sank back.
‘You’re coming with me.’ Lai grabbed him, pulling him to his feet. ‘Fresh air. That’s what we need.’
Jhofiel shrugged and drifted away from the alcove. In the boskh-haze no one seemed to care whether they stayed or left.
Out in the street, Ymarys slid down onto a doorstep, a huddle of arms and legs. Lai sat down beside him, his head still swimming.
‘Arkhan’s orders?’ Ymarys said; he began to smoothe out his creased jacket and to fasten his collar in a vain attempt to smarten his appearance. ‘I – can’t appear before Melmeth looking like this.’
‘There’s still time,’ Lai said. ‘We’re to report at wakenight.’
Ymarys staggered to his feet, clutching at the doorpost to steady himself.
‘I – thought you’d left Perysse. Disappeared. Back to Ael Lahi.’
‘Would I have gone without telling you?’
‘Yes. It was in your eyes. I don’t know what’s made you change your mind … but it isn’t anything I said to you, is it?’
Although it was almost wakenight, a single light was still burning in Azhrel’s study. Lai, not daring to disturb the formidable Mirali, went round to the creeper-framed window and tapped on the pane.
Arlan looked up from his papers; his face looked grey and haggard in the lamplight.
‘What are you doing trampling on my herb garden at this time of night?’ he asked brusquely, opening the window.
‘I had to see you. Can I come in a moment?’
Azhrel shrugged. Lai clambered up and over the sill. The desk was strewn with papers, drawings, moonmoth specimens.
‘Look – I’m sorry. I won’t be able to help you as we’d planned. I have to leave Perysse. For a while. Melmeth’s orders.’
‘Maybe that’s all for the best,’ Azhrel said obscurely.
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing, nothing …’Azhrel dragged his hands over his face, as if trying to wipe away the fatigue.
‘You look exhausted. You’re doing too much. You really do need an assistant. If only I—’
‘You’re under Melmeth’s orders. And as for exhaustion – it’s something one learns to live with in this profession.’
‘I won’t keep you from your work any longer.’
‘Decent of you,’ Azhrel murmured, picking up his pen, dipping it into the ink, starting to write again.
Lai swung his leg over the sill.
‘Wait. The moonmoths on Ael Lahi,’ Azhrel said suddenly. ‘You said they came every spring. They mated, laid their eggs, died. Where did they lay their eggs?’
Lai turned around, puzzled.
‘I don’t know. I never really thought about it. Till now. I suppose there was some tree they favoured in the Grove …’
‘And no one ever picked some little crawling thing off a leaf and said, “Oh look, here’s a moonmoth caterpillar”?’
‘No.’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd? And yet I’ll bet that as a child you collected beetles, you chased butterflies and maybe dropped a caterpillar or two down someone’s back …’
‘The moonmoths were sacred to the Goddess. And as for crawling things … we treat them with respect. Some – like the scarlet sandspider – can kill with a single bite. What exactly are you getting at, Arlan?’
‘Take no notice. Talking in my sleep, that’s all …’
‘Sleep well,’ Lai said softly.
When he reached the little door in the garden wall, Lai looked back. He could still see Azhrel, outlined in shadow against the lamplight, hunched in concentration over his papers.
A sharp, insistent jab startled Laili; the baby was restless tonight, kicking and squirming. Could it sense her anxiety, her fears for the future?
‘Hush now,’ she whispered, placing one hand over the distended wall of her belly.
A painted panel slid open in the wall; Melmeth came into the bedchamber.
‘I have made the arrangements.’
‘You’re sending me away.’
‘Have you ever heard me speak of Langoel?’ She heard him give a fleeting sigh as he pronounced the name. ‘I spent the happiest years of my childhood there. At a place of study and contemplation. Azhrel was my companion there, my fellow student.’
‘Dr Azhrel?’
‘The very same. That was before my father had me brought back to Myn-Dhiel, saying that it was no fit education for his only son to be cloistered with mystics and scholars.’
‘You didn’t want to leave?’
He did not answer her question.
‘The house overlooks the sea. I know you’ll feel at home there. I have sent word of your coming to my mentor Pherindyn who is Venerable Hearkenor there. They will take good care of you until the plague has run its course and it is safe to return to Perysse.’
‘But you—’
He took her hands in his own.
‘I will come to join you. I promise, Laili. I would go with you now – only—’ She saw him blink tears away; his lids seemed swollen, the intense green beneath filmy, clouded.
‘Is there something the matter with your eyes?’ she said, concerned.
‘Just lack of sleep …’
‘You must take care of yourself.’ She pressed his hands, raising them to her cheek, not wanting to let go.
‘I will sleep more easily once I know you and the babe are safe.’
‘Is it far to Langoel?’
‘Several days’ journey by boat and by land.’
‘And I must go alone?’
‘I have asked your brother to go with you to protect you on the journey. Oh, don’t cry, chaeryn, please don’t cry.’
‘I’m not crying,’ she said even though she could feel the tears trickling
down her cheeks.
‘It will only be for a little while, a very little while. Maybe only a few days. I shall come to you as soon as I can. Trust me, Laili.’
* * * * *
The royal barque rocked gently on the broad river in the early morning breeze. Lai and Ymarys, dressed for travel, stood waiting on the landing stage. Melmeth’s orders had stipulated they should be here, beyond the Ahrimel Gate, at dawn.
The river marshes stretched away into the distance, a yellow sea of velvet butter-rushes and goldeneye, already resonant with the hum of bees.
‘Here they come,’ Ymarys said, nudging Lai.
One of the ancient Memizhon tunnels, legacy of more unsettled times, opened out on the river bank beyond the city walls. Now Lai saw the rusty grille opening. The Arkhan came out of the gloom of the tunnel entrance with Laili beside him. Tarkhastars of the Tarkhas Memizhon followed discreetly several paces behind.
The pale morning sky seemed to have leeched all colour from Laili’s wan face; she walked slowly, reluctantly, as though unwilling to leave Melmeth’s side.
Now Lai saw what he had refused to acknowledge before. It was true; she loved Melmeth.
‘Lai.’ She acknowledged him with a glance, a brave attempt at a smile.
He found his hands moving out to touch her face in greeting, her wind-tousled hair. Her cheeks were cold, chilled by the breeze off the Yssil.
‘Take good care of her, Lai.’
Lai nodded.
‘Come soon,’ Laili whispered.
Melmeth took her hands in his and, raising them to his lips, kissed them. Choked for words, he turned away to where his tarkhastars stood waiting. Overhead gulls wheeled and soared.
Lai and Ymarys helped Laili up the gangplank onto the deck of the barque.
The sailors began to untie the mooring ropes, the heavy coils slapped onto the deck. The barque shuddered, oars dipped, the drum began to pound a brisk rhythm as she headed out into midstream.
Laili stood at the rail of the barque, looking back as Melmeth and the blue blur of the tarkhastars’ uniforms dwindled to a dot … and disappeared from sight.
The barque reached the estuary port of Phaeros two days later. The canton of Langoel was another day’s sailing – given fair winds and auspicious tides – southwards along the coast. At sundip the following day the barque-maistre set them down on the shore of a little inlet.
Wading birds, their plumage pink in the setting sun, rose off the salt flats in a great flock, wheeling and wheeling again over their heads, giving eerie, plangent cries as they flew across the sands.
Where the birds had risen up in a cloud of wings, Lai saw a long white wall enclosing the silvered domes and towers of the House of Hearkening of Langoel, built on the seashore itself, within perpetual sight and sound of the sea.
‘It’s miles from anywhere!’ Ymarys said in tones of disbelief.
Laili squeezed Lai’s hand in hers.
‘Doesn’t it remind you – just a little – of home?’
Pherindyn, the Venerable Hearkenor, received them in his room, a white-washed cell decorated with patterns of seashells set into the plaster; coral-tinged cockleshells and the whorls of whelks and periwinkles.
‘Ah! The Lady Laili.’ Pherindyn laid down his gull-quill pen and rose to greet them, looking intently at them over the top of his rimless spectacles. ‘You are most welcome. We have been expecting you and your escorts since we received the Arkhan’s letter.’
‘You are most kind,’ Laili said softly.
‘As the Arkhan explained to you, this is a house of contemplation and study. Please feel at liberty to go where you will, to read in the library if you wish, or to walk in the gardens. But I must warn you – some of our elder appellants here are devoted to their studies and hate to be disturbed!’ Pale blue eyes, light as a summer sky, twinkled benevolently at them from a wrinkled, sun-browned face.
‘We make music too, so it may please you to listen to our playing … or even join us, if it pleases you.’
‘I’ve brought my flute,’ Laili said, looking up at Lai as she spoke, ‘though I am sorely out of practice.’
‘This news of pestilence in Perysse is most unfortunate. Sultry summers seem to breed disease in the stews of the city. But I’m sure it will die with the summer’s heat. Some of our most dedicated students work in the city as physicians and apothecaries. I know they will devote themselves to finding a cure.’
The tide was far out, a glisten of silver on the hazy horizon, when Lai went to walk along the sands next morning. The wet sand oozed beneath his feet, the salty wind tousled his hair.
He closed his eyes, letting the bleached calm of early morning cradle him. Beyond the hazed horizon lay Ael Lahi … the white island, the safe haven …
‘You were going home.’ Laili was standing on the edge of the dunes, watching him. ‘And now you’ve had to stay in Ar-Khendye – because of me.’
‘There wasn’t a ship bound for the Spice Islands for weeks,’ he said, shrugging it aside.
She came down the sands and slipped her arm through his, resting her head against his shoulder.
‘I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad we’re here together.’
He nodded … but his eyes strayed over the top of her head, gazing longingly out towards the distant horizon and beyond …
CHAPTER 17
Melmeth stood with Azhrel at Khaldar’s bedside. Azhrel drew back the thin sheet covering the boy. The plague marks, the swollen red tracery that covered him from neck to groin, had not faded; if anything they seemed more angry, more inflamed than before.
‘Any change, Arlan?’ Melmeth asked anxiously.
The doctor shook his head.
‘Periods of lucidity … then the fever returns and with it, this utter prostration. I begin to fear he may be losing the fight.’
‘Mel–meth! Mel–meth!’
Melmeth looked up, puzzled. ‘What’s that?’
He went to the window, pushing open the rain-speckled glass. Sun suddenly flooded Khaldar’s bedchamber, piercingly, wetly bright. Melmeth shut his eyes, turning away from the light, gasping with pain.
‘My lord?’ Azhrel was at his side, supporting him. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘My – eyes.’ He fumbled his way into a chair, averting his face from the light.
‘Let me look,’ Azhrel tipped Melmeth’s head upwards, gazing searchingly into his eyes.
So gentle, Azhrel’s supporting hands, they were like a caress. So close, he could feel Azhrel’s breath, warm, yet fresh and sweet, on his light-seared eyes …
‘Well?’ Melmeth demanded. Whenever he tried to focus on Azhrel’s face, the image slipped and slurred out of focus. It was like peering in through a steamy window on a wet winter’s day.
Azhrel slowly took his hands away.
‘Have you been taking boskh?’
‘Maybe a little …’
‘How little is “a little”?’
‘How can you tell I’ve been taking it?’
‘Sarilla, Khaldar, others in Myn-Dhiel, all presenting with the same symptoms: abnormally enlarged pupils, swelling, sensitivity to light. And all had been ingesting the drug; not a grain or two but considerable amounts.’
‘And is there no remedy?’
‘I’ll put some eyedrops in for you. A tincture I have concocted myself from a prescription in one of old Galendryn’s Journals; it seems quite efficacious.’
Azhrel took out a dropper and a little phial of translucent liquid from his physic bag.
‘These drops sting like nettles – but the pain soon passes.’
The tincture splashed into Melmeth’s right eye, then the left and all was fire, bright fire, tears of fire were running down his cheek, he could not blink them away …
He gripped the arms of the chair until he felt his knuckle bones would burst through his skin.
‘Melmeth! Melmeth!’ The chanting grew louder.
Melmeth came through the fire, blinking
away the last molten tears.
‘It’s worse. Everything’s blurred again.’
‘Patience, zhan, patience. Give it time to work.’
‘You must tell me the truth.’ There was an acrid taste in his mouth. ‘Am I losing my sight?’
‘It’s hard to tell.’ Azhrel stoppered the little phial tightly. ‘I haven’t seen enough cases yet to prove any pattern …’
‘The truth, Arlan.’
‘The truth,’ Azhrel said heavily, ‘is that you could lose your sight at any time. The deterioration is irreversible. Any exposure to intense light – even strong sunlight – and the damage will be permanent.’
Melmeth, numbed, sat staring blankly into emptiness. Blind. Condemned to walk out of the sun for the rest of his life – or to walk forever in perpetual dark.
‘And you must not neglect to apply this tincture. I’ll make you up a bottle, drops to be administered four times a—’
‘Mel-meth!’
‘What is that noise?’
‘My lord!’ Jhafir came hurrying into the chamber. ‘Are the rumours true? Are you planning to leave the city?’
Melmeth swallowed. Had he been naive enough to think he could slip away to Langoel without anyone commenting?
‘Only for a little while.’
‘But your people need you. Listen to them calling for you. For Mithiel’s sake, do not leave Perysse until this crisis is past. Have you heard what they are saying in the city? They are saying that this plague is the god’s punishment on you. That you should never have sent Clodolë away.’
‘And is that what you believe, Jhafir?’
‘I believe there is a real risk of riots unless we can prove to the people that we are doing all we can to halt the spread of the sickness.’
‘But there is always plague in the city in summer.’
‘This plague is unlike any other. They are afraid.’
‘Then let me speak to them. Let me reassure them.’
‘We can’t just “speak” to them, my lord Arkhan. We have to do something.’
‘What are the opinions of the physicians? Azhrel?’
‘You know my opinion already. Ban the use of boskh. And enforce the ban rigorously.’
Melmeth looked back at Jhafir.
