by Paul Kearney
“He did? And I thought him a dried up old pedant. Still, you have proved his point.”
“There is a concept called irony - let me explain it to you.”
“Enough!” Kassander cried. “I wish you two would just get married and have it over with.”
“All intelligent conversation ends with marriage, Kassander - you know that,” Karnos said, waving a slave over for more wine. “Once the woman has her feet in the door the talk is all of budgets and babies.”
Kassia looked the slave-girl pouring Karnos’s wine up and down. “It seems to me you have too many wives already, Karnos.”
“I have an enormous heart, lady,” Karnos told her gravely. “It craves affection, but wilts like a flower when confronted by the brutalities of everyday domesticity. I have constructed my household to shield me from such indelicacies.”
The eyes of every man in the room followed the willowy girl with the wine-jug as she padded back into the shadows. Kassia sighed.
“You are a massive boy, Karnos. The woman who married you would be yoked to a lifelong project.”
“And that,” Karnos said triumphantly, “is the very definition of marriage. I thank you, lady, for putting it so pithily.”
Kassander lay back on his couch. “If the building were on fire, you two would stand inside arguing over who had started it.”
“Argument between a man and a woman is lovemaking without the orgasm,” Tyrias said with a raised eyebrow.
“Ah there we are - someone else farts,” Karnos said. “Can’t educated people converse without digging up the bones of dead men?”
“You’re a trivial bunch,” bull-necked Murchos grunted. “The world is on fire around us, Machran besieged, our fates cast to the whims of the gods, and you sit here sipping wine and indulging in sophistry. I’m glad the men on the walls don’t have an ear in this room.”
“Given half a chance they’d be doing the same, though with a little more raw gusto,” Karnos said dismissively. “Tomorrow we’ll stand on the walls and look Phobos in the eye. For tonight” - he poured a scarlet stream of wine onto the exquisite mosaic of the floor - “here’s a libation to gentle Haukos of the pink face, god of hope and men who drink too much. His palerfaced brother can kiss my hairy arse - saving your presence, lady.”
“Your piety is charming,” Kassia said. She stood up. “Gentlemen, I shall take a turn about the courtyard to clear my head.” She lifted her veil from her shoulders and wound it about her hair.
“Ah - the sun goes in!” Tyrias cried. “Sweet Araian, how canst thou veil thy bright face from me?”
“Put your cup to your mouth, Tyrias,” Karnos said, and rose in his turn. “Lady, will you lean on my arm?”
“Is it steady enough to bear me?” Kassia asked.
“I am a rock,” Karnos told her, swaying slightly. “Kassander, I will walk your sister in the shadows by my fountain. I assure you I am of innocent intent.”
Kassander waved a hand. “Take her, take her.”
The cold air struck Karnos like a splash of water as the pair left the firelit room for the blue shadow of the outer courtyard. The fountain splashed white moonlight in its pool and, looking up, Karnos found himself staring full into the pale face of Phobos, leering over the city like a rounded skull. Kassia shivered and drew closer to him. He could feet the warmth of her skin through the thin silken peplos.
“Phobos is full,” she said. “This is his season.”
Karnos put his arm about her and nuzzled the silk-covered fragrant hair at her temple. “Kassia, we are alive and well and there are ten thousand valiant men standing between you and the barbarians beyond the gates.” He bent his head and kissed her through the veil.
For a second her mouth responded to his, coming to life, and then she withdrew, patting his arm.
“I had always heard that men take liberties in wartime,” she said. And then, “It seems like bad luck, with Phobos looking on.”
“Marry me, Kassia,” Karnos murmured, his hands running up and down her arms, sliding the silk across her skin. He could feel the raised stipple of goosebumps on her flesh.
“That old saw? You have laid siege to my virtue for years, Karnos - what makes you think my walls will yield to you now?”
“You love me, as I have loved you all this time. What better moment to finally admit it than now, when the world is liable to come crashing down around us?”
She looked up at him, that strong jawline he loved, the courage in that broadboned face, the moonlight making the veil covering it as translucent as mist.
“And is the world to come crashing down, Karnos?”
He hesitated a moment, his face sombre, his eyes fixed on hers. Then the old buffoon’s grin flashed out. “You think this city can fall while your brother and I defend it? We are the Phobos and Haukos of Machran.”
She set a hand across his mouth. “Don’t talk like that.”
“The gods can laugh too, Kassia,” he said, kissing her cold fingers. “And Antimone loves those who chance everything for the love of another, whether it be a soldier shielding his brother on the battlefield, or a man risking all for the regard of a good woman.”
She lifted her hand and set it on his shoulder, atop the padding which still covered his wound.
“I would have died, had you not come back to me, Karnos. You will not make me love you more by bleeding in some battleline.”
“I know. And that’s why it is you for me, Kassia -you alone. It always has been.”
She walked away from him, a slim upright shadow greyed by the moonlight.
“You play the fool to win the heart of the mob, but I hate to see you do it. And you surround yourself with slaves so you will not be alone - the only people in this world you trust are old Polio and my brother.”
“And you.”
“If you trusted me you would do as I asked.”
He shook his head helplessly. “This is who I am. The way I live -”
“Is a scandal which makes your name a topic in all the wineshops of the city. You find that useful - I detest it.”
Karnos’s shoulders sagged. “I cannot discard my people. They depend on me.”
“They are your slaves, Karnos.”
“You have never been poor, Kassia. You don’t know.”
She whirled on him. “You damned idiot. You’re too frightened to let go of your past for fear of ridicule. How the mob would marvel if Karnos of Machran became respectable!” “It’s all appearances, nothing more.”
“It is not - it goes right to the heart of you. You will always be the child of the Mithannon. You are Speaker of Machran, Karnos, leader of the greatest city west of the sea. You have nothing to prove.”
“Except to you.”
“Except to me,” she said quietly. She stepped close to him again. “My dear, you are a better man than anyone knows.”
“I am a coward and a buffoon.”
“It is not cowardice to feel fear. You do not need to wield a spear to show me your courage. I know your quality, Karnos - I only wish more people did.”
She stood up on her toes and kissed him. “Now go back to my brother. I will ask Polio to escort me home.”
KARNOS RETURNED TO the warmth of the inner hall, where the men on the couches reclined with their cups to hand, and the slaves stood about the walls like attentive statuary. He held out his own cup without a word, and Grania came forward to fill it. She smiled at him, but his face felt like wood.
“Karnos,” Kassander said, “Tell these fellows about the time you and I won that drinking contest in the Mithannon. They won’t believe me - they have to hear it from your own mouth.”
Karnos blinked. His face came slowly to life. The old grin spread across it.
“It was last summer, as I recall...” he said.
EIGHTEEN
THE GROVE OF OLIVES
THE WHITE, CLEAN world of the highlands was behind them, and they were trudging downhill now, always downhill, through the s
mall farms and olive groves of the Machran hinterland. The olive trees were black in the winter light, and seemed scarcely alive at all; gnarled relics of a forgotten summer.
They camped beneath them when they could, for shelter against the rain, and Aise cupped her bound hands full of the dead leaves of the year gone by, brittle shavings with the shape of spearheads. She smelled them, inhaling a last scent of the world’s warmth.
The party grouped about the fire, Ona and Rian huddling up to her like pups seeking warmth. Ona was pale and empty-eyed, but now and again her furious barking cough would make the men start and curse.
“Shut that fucking brat up,” the one named Bosca snapped. He rubbed the scar at his eye where Styra had exacted payment for her rape and murder. “Boss, do we really need to be hauling that little shit with us? She’s not even of an age to fuck.”
Sertorius was rebinding the straps that bound his thick-soled sandals to his feet. He did not look up. “Take it up with Phaestus, or stow it.”
“If we have to move quiet, she’ll be the bane of us all.”
Sertorius raised his head at that. He looked at Aise, then shrugged. “We’ll see when the time comes.”
Phaestus stumbled into camp, his son at his elbow. His face had become ossified, a skull in which his bright eyes burned. He half-fell in front of the fire, and Philemos reached for the flaccid wineskin.
“Easy on that,” hulking Adurnos said. “It’s the last one.”
“He needs some warmth in him,” Philemos protested, and uncorked the skin, holding the nozzle to his father’s mouth. Phaestus choked and swallowed, the red liquid running down his neck in trickled lines.
“You’ve done well to get this far,” Sertorius said to Phaestus. “For a while there I thought we’d be leaving you for the kites and ravens.”
Phaestus mastered his heaving breath. “I have enough in me yet for the job to get done.”
“He should be on the mule,” Philemos said, wiping his father’s mouth.
“The mule can barely manage that barking brat as it is,” Adurnos grunted. “Another few days and it’ll go the way of the last one.”
“Good eating, though,” Bosca said with a grin. Adurnos and Sertorius laughed.
Philemos stared across the fire at Aise and her children. They were hollow-eyed scarecrows, flesh worn close to the bone, hair matted with filth. The company had been ten days on the road, and the pasangs had left their mark upon them all, but the three captives had fared worst.
He scrambled through the grey leaf-litter and knelt in front of Aise, holding out the skin.
“It might help her.”
Aise nodded, her eyes flickering with gratitude. She held Ona in her arms and put the spout of the wineskin to the child’s mouth. Rian raised the skin, almost empty now. She looked at Philemos.
“Thank you.” The words a cracked whisper, no more.
“That’s your share you’re giving her, boy,” Bosca said loudly. “You want to waste it on the little rat-cunt, it’s your affair, but don’t expect no more.”
“Fair enough,” Philemos said without turning around. His dark curls hung in mud-fastened strings either side of his face. He looked at Aise, at Ona, swallowing the wine and whimpering, and lastly at Rian, who returned his gaze squarely, her eyes grey as the shank of a spearhead.
His mouth worked, but he took the skin back from Aise without saying anything.
The day died about them, the fire brightening against the blue darkness of the world.
“There’s farmers here have places for pigs to have a roof over their heads, and yet here we are sleeping on dirt for I don’t know how many nights,” Bosca said. “I don’t see the wisdom of it, is all - we’re not up in the fucking mountains anymore.”
“We don’t know what’s been going on since we were up in the hills,” Phaestus said. “Or how far Corvus’s army has come.” He wheezed wetly as he breathed, and when Philemos set a hand on his arm he managed a laugh.
“I’ve been hunting in the highlands these twenty years, and now a two week jaunt has me like this. Phobos must have a sense of humour.”
“Phobos hates all men,” Sertorius said, chewing reflectively on a strip of roast mule meat. “Not just you. You’re old, Phaestus - that’s all there is to it. You were a right hard bastard when you were younger, but I think Antimone’s wings beat over you now.”
“My father will outlive you all,” Philemos said fiercely, the fire glinting out of his eyes.
“Maybe he will, but I doubt it,” Sertorius said, tilting his head to one side. “Phaestus, we’re back down in civilized lands now - how far do you make it to Machran?”
Phaestus pushed his son away, sat up before the fire, drew his knife, and began pushing the unburnt butts of the sticks into the bright core of flame.
“Two days. Maybe less, if we make good time.”
“Well, Antimone’s tits! That’s some news to savour at least. I take it back, Phaestus - you have years of life in your bones yet. Two days! It’s enough to warm a man’s heart.” Sertorius grinned. He leaned over and clapped Phaestus on the shoulder.
“What way lies Machran?”
Phaestus’s jaw worked. The air sawed in and out of his mouth. “You see the tree to my right, Sertorius? That way is north, by Gaenion’s Pointer.”
Sertorius kept looking at him.
“You can make your way in the world by that star. For us it means that west is to my left. Where Rictus’s wife sits - that is the way to Machran.”
Sertorius’s head jabbed from one side to another, like that of a blackbird eyeing up a worm. He winked at Phaestus.
“And it’s just like that.”
Phaestus nodded. “Just like that.” He seemed like a man too tired to care.
“Old friend, this calls for something beyond the ordinary.” Sertorius stood up, strolled to the edge of the firelight and took the mule by the halter. The animal blew through its nose and he stroked it. “My little secret-keeper. Give us a kiss.” He nuzzled the mule’s nose.
“You are one funny bastard, boss,” Adurnos said.
Sertorius ran his hands over the mule, his eyes dark as sloes in the firelight. Then he stood leaning against it with an arm across its withers. The emaciated animal stood patiently, ears down.
“I trust this poor beast more than any of you - you know why? The fucker doesn’t talk.”
He whipped around, reached into a pack on the ground, and began rummaging through it.
“That’s the last of the food, chief,” Bosca said, uncertain, frowning.
“That’s why I said no-one should touch it but me,” Sertorius retorted. He straightened, grinning. “Look what I brought from the great Rictus’s country retreat, boys. Been saving it until we were well out of all that fucking snow.”
It was a full skin of wine.
Sertorius tossed it towards the fire. “Go on, lads -I’d say we’ve earned it.”
Bosca and Adurnos cackled like huge girls, scrabbled over the wineskin for a few moments until Bosca gave in to Adurnos’s snarling bulk. The big man’s broken nose made him snuffle and snort as he squeezed the skin into his mouth, eyes closed.
“Go easy on that friend,” Phaestus rasped. “There’s enough for all.”
Adurnos paused for breath, the wine dribbling red across his teeth.
“Fuck you, old man,” he said.
AISE SAT WITH her back to the tree. The firelight still touched her feet, but the rest of her was in darkness. Ona slept, snuffling and whimpering, against her, while on her other side Rian was as taut as a strung bow.
Aise and Rian were bound with ropes of rawhide, strung to long wooden pickets hammered deep into the ground at Sertorius’s side. Their wrists were bloody and inflamed, scabbed and welted like raw meat, but they scarcely felt the pain any more.
Phaestus was asleep, wrapped in his own blankets and those of his son. He moaned and muttered in his sleep, muscles working in his face, every sinew tight against the skin. He
had taken the flux a few days out of Andunnon, and Aise knew that he had been passing blood for some time now. Philemos hovered over him like a protective hound, watching the three other men at the fire.
They were all drunk now, these three, the wineskin drained almost flat. The strong yellow wine that Aise and Rian had trodden out in the big tub the summer before, the grapes popping and breaking under their bare feet. A last remnant of a life destroyed.
Sertorius, Bosca and Adurnos. They were sat side by side, their boasting and horseplay done with, the wine working in their minds, setting their thoughts to other things.
A silence fell across the little campsite, broken only by the snap and spit of the wet wood in the fire, Phaestus’s stertorous breathing, and the whimpering of the sleeping child at Aise’s side.
“What’s so special about this Rictus fellow that his bitches will make a difference to Machran?” Bosca asked. In the firelight, his bearded face was a mask of fur.
“You never heard of the great Rictus of Isca?” Sertorius said. “Ignorant fuck; he led the Ten Thousand. He’s a hero, a stone-hard red-cloaked mercenary with his own army.”
“So he’ll chuck it all away for the sake of these?” Bosca asked. “What is he, soft in the head or something?”
Sertorius grinned. “He’s a thing you can’t understand, Bosca, a family man. A man of honour. Phaestus here reckons Rictus would do pretty much anything to keep his women safe.”
Big Adurnos was running his eyes over Aise and Rian. “They’re not so pretty as they was, but I like the young one. I bet she’s never been popped. They start late, the girls up in the hills.”
“You think?” Bosca said with a yellow grin. “Phobos! I can’t remember the last time I dipped into a virgin’s cunny.” He turned to Sertorius. “What do you say, boss? We’ve been good boys -how about allowing us a little taste before we have to hand them over?”
Sertorius blinked slowly. He looked at Aise and Rian across the fire, his eyes black and cold as stones. He seemed to be rolling the idea around in his head.
“I can’t see what the harm would be,” he said at last.
