by J. B. Lucas
With alien reactions taking control, Marcan swung down, seized one of the heavy sandstone blocks edging the road, and spun, wheeling the rock at his attackers. Its trajectory was not at the first rider, who could have ducked or dodged, but rather at his heavily blinkered horse. With a terrific crack, it battered the bridge of the animal’s nose and sent it into a silent stumble.
Marcan ran at the other rider, feinted, ducked and rolled past him and leapt on to the injured mount, landing shoulder-first on to its bloodied face. Down it went, trapping its rider’s leg. Marcan clambered over the horse’s shoulder, pinning the soldier’s wrist and his long blade, and reached with his other hand, pushing a finger through one eyehole, feeling the disgusting resistance to his probe, driving home his dirty fingernail. The soldier roared in pain, dropping his sword and scrabbling at Marcan’s hand. But Marcan was away, quickly on to the loose weapon.
The other rider had turned and was contemplating with some indecision how to help his colleague.
Marcan stood, dragging the cavalry sword in the dirt behind him, taking a position on the open road. The rider didn’t wait now, spurs into the haunches of his mount, yelling encouragements as he levelled the tip of his own weapon along the horse’s neck in the direction of his target.
Again, Marcan feinted, whipping the heavy blade with an incredible dexterity across the galloping legs, severing ankles, breaking bones. An animal scream, a human shout, and the second rider fell, cascading on top of his associate with a bang of metal-on-metal. Marcan walked over, eying the scene, and then dumped the tip of the steel blade clinically through the hearts of both soldiers and both horses. He threw the sword on top of the bodies.
He stared at the pile for a moment longer, dipped to remove the top rider’s knife and money purse, and stalked off the road into the trees. He was alone and frightened, yet he held on with an ever-stronger grip to that feeling of divine destiny.
Chapter 5
All the way along the road, Marcan had seen small huts of a uniform architecture. His face was emblazoned on each, and most often the doors were open and the inside empty. As the sun fell behind the mountains and the air in the trees turned colder, Marcan crept to the back wall of one, a dark shadow against its whitewashed walls, his face pressing against the brick in mimicry of the big-nosed silhouette. He imagined the hut to have a homely scent of urine and old food, but when he stuck his head through the wooden doorframe, he saw only a clean pallet with a slightly higher twin next to it. The floor was brushed clean and flat. No animals slept in the rafters and no past inhabitants had marked their territory with a dump.
He went in, allowing himself to feel the chill of the setting sun at last, and slid the bolt on the door behind him. The system had been concocted to keep people out and not allow an absent squatter to make it a permanent residence by locking it from the outside. Behind the two pallets was a burnt circle matching the small hole in the tiles above, and then beyond the fire pit, a small beck rushed between the walls parallel to the road outside. It had been panelled by flat flints and was at once a waste disposal and a latrine. He paused, then splashed water across his face and his neck and then soaked his hair, careless of how many other rest huts were upstream. He took a deep breath, failing to match his divine purpose with this squalid end to the day. Glory might be his destiny, but the gods seemed to want to teach him patience on the way.
Marcan sighed, then pulled off the tunic, bloodied and torn, and crammed it into the small rivulet. Water poured over his knuckles and wrists, lifting over his arms, running on to the parched dusty floor, making an ugly mess.
Birds talked close to the back wall of the hut, vibrant and optimistic as he slouched on to the worn surface of the higher bench, falling asleep in the warm, breezeless dusk of the hut.
The tramping footsteps from the road outside popped his sleep. He lay, his eyes closed, listening to the various gaits of men and beasts crunch on the track as they approached the hut. Marcan slithered off the bench, slipping on the tunic, which was still wet in its embossed silk hems. Voices carried with the footsteps, and animals were rasping and clearing their throats. He sat, head down, praying they carried on past his door. He had no room to fight and no escape.
The pack outside drew to a stop and rustic accents started muttering to each other as they commenced their tasks, babbling to their animals to the clink of harnesses. A single rhythmic step came to the door, paused, and then hammered with something solid.
“I say,” came a clipped voice, “I know this is none of your business, but I need to use the loo. It takes me a little time and causes me some embarrassment, so I prefer to wait for somewhere covered to allow me decency. I’m sorry to wake you in this way and with this request, but I have practised asking it many times over the years and it is the best way in the end.” There was a pause. “Is anyone alive in there?”
Marcan screwed his face up. There was no peephole to see who was outside. If he didn’t answer, they were bound to knock the door down if they thought the inhabitant was dead. If he did answer, he was obliged to allow the man his movement. He took a penny he had borrowed from a shrine the day before and flipped it, letting his destiny decide.
Without thought, he acted on its result, popping open the door, grabbing the knocking gentleman by the front of his robe and hoisting him in before slamming the bolt shut again. They observed each other, both as surprised by this sudden meeting as the other.
“Um . . . Balthasar,” said the new arrival, holding out an old, muscular hand. He had thick, straight white hair, grown long on top and clipped around the sides, giving a youthful shape to his wrinkled face. Dark eyebrows rested above handsome dark eyes, and a straight nose led into a thick white beard grown just as carefully groomed as his hair. He had the air of a particular man, overly clean in his appearance.
“Marcan,” he grunted. It was the first time he had said the word and it didn’t trip off his tongue as he expected. He knocked knuckles with the man, trying to minimize the contact with his broken skin.
“I know . . . this must be an inconvenience,” stated Balthasar with a slight stammer. “Latrine etiquette being what it is.”
Marcan shrugged. “This is not my house,” he said. “You’re welcome to leave your soil here.”
“Well, it is different in the palace,” remarked Balthasar oddly.
“I suppose it is,” said Marcan. They considered each other for a moment, eyes locked, reading the other man. “Do you need me to wait outside?” he asked eventually. “It’s just, well, I might spend the day here and I don’t want to accidentally cede ownership.”
“Thus the rapid method of entry?”
“Indeed.”
“If you don’t mind my activities in your presence, I’m fine with it.” Another brief moment of quiet, then a mutual nod and they went in diagonally opposite directions in the small hut.
Balthasar opened a bag by his hip and pulled out a folded wooden contraption, which with a flick opened into a stool with a gaping hole in the middle. He targeted it over the stream and then descended with his robes draped around him for maximum discretion.
Marcan slunk to the door, allowing it to open slightly. Outside he saw four men readying themselves to enter with force.
“You’d better let your companions know you’re okay,” he said. “Otherwise you’re going to have an angry audience watch you pissing yourself from shock.”
Balthasar called out, “All is well, gents. I’ll be out in no time.”
The group outside paused, then three of them moved out of Marcan’s line of sight and he examined the remaining man. Tall, shaped by an outdoor life from his coarse-lined fingertips to wind-blown hair. The man’s gaze turned, catching Marcan in guilty surveillance before he could shut the door. An expression of violence, frozen in Marcan’s eye as the bolt slammed into place.
“They’re a likely lot,” stated Balthasar, watching from his folded pose. “They’d bust down the door if needed.”
�
�I’m not going to hurt you,” said Marcan.
“Of course you’re not. Think you’d let me crap if you were going to crack my head afterwards? What a redundant statement.”
Marcan eyed him. “Well, you aren’t going to be started or finished anytime soon, so perhaps you’ll die of old age instead.”
“It is one of the curses of my years,” muttered Balthasar. “It is a way the deities remove my smugness at living so long, by removing control of the most embarrassing activities. You’ll see yourself one day.”
Marcan turned away. He searched for something else to look at in the hut.
“Well, I intend to live a long life,” he said. “And I trust the gods with my welfare, but a betting man couldn’t consider my odds high at present.”
“Yes,” murmured Balthasar. “What exactly is your predicament?”
“I don’t know,” Marcan replied. He closed his eyes and eased the bolt open, edging the door fractionally ajar again. No-one was in sight, but voices came from close either side. “I woke up yesterday morning without a clue about where I was or who I am. I promptly got attacked by some old wench.”
“In Bistrantium on the hill? Seems that she has given you quite a fight.”
Marcan laughed, his first smile for a while. He turned to Balthasar, examining his knuckles and then lifting one side of his tunic to show his ribs.
True,” he said. “She liked it rough.”
There was a disturbing sound of something hitting the water and as Marcan watched, Balthasar’s face returned to a normal colour and his neck softened. He flew up and he scuttled down the length of the waterway, scrutinising his deposit as it travelled. He stopped, washed his hands and then stood, deftly collecting the seat with three fingers in such a way it folded in and fitted into his bag.
“So, what are your plans now?” asked Balthasar. Marcan’s eyebrows drew together. He shrugged.
“I suppose I’ll keep moving until I find out what’s going on,” he said. “Are those your boys out there?”
“They take their salt from me, yes.” A pause. “They’ll do you no harm if that’s what you’re worried about.” There was a conclusion in Balthasar’s voice when he spoke again. “We’d be glad to have you join us for the next leg of the journey,” he suggested. “No-one in my troupe will allow you to get hurt. We’re moving away from the capital and the next town is a good few days’ journey, and I believe that I can keep you hidden for a while.”
“Yes,” replied Marcan, calmed unexpectedly by this gift from whichever god was holding his destiny. They nodded briefly to each other, then Balthasar bent to wash his hands once more. He looked around the hut. “Travelling light?”
“You might say with less than the bare essentials.” “We’ve more than enough,” replied Balthasar, now in charge as he squeezed past Marcan. He swung the door open, an action which catapulted the four men outside to their feet. “We’ve a new troupe member,” he announced.
In total, the band outside totalled around twenty. Everyone stared at Marcan, one or two switching back to Balthasar as if wondering what had gone on during his normal morning stop.
“but he’s...” started one of the four burly door attendants. His voice drifted off as he stared at the newcomer and then at the clay portrait of the emperor behind him on the hut wall. Marcan stared at the man, waiting for the judgement. “Under my mentorship and our protection,” interjected Balthasar. “This young actor requires our company for the next leg of his journey and I think we might have a place for him in our performance next week. Anybody overly upset with my casting decision?”
The man Marcan had spied earlier turned to him, a brutish mouth rupturing lopsidedly into a grin with shiny teeth. He snapped out a laugh.
“Jed,” he barked with a thick accent. “I’ll be your Demetrian. You’re going to make us all rich, I think.” He held out a calloused hand and smiled.
“Samwer,” said another man, older and with hair scraped back from his face. He wore thick eyeliner, his accent was educated. “I’m Loreticus.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” stated Marcan, looking at Samwer.
“Demetrian the imperial bodyguard,” repeated Samwer, gesturing in the direction of Jed. “Loreticus the spymaster,” he said, tapping himself on the chest with the ends of all eight fingers. Marcan’s blank expression obviously didn’t satisfy Samwer.
“We play the parts of two men who are involved in the court intrigues.”
“Our troupe, The Psittacis, travel a lot because we’re warranted by the palace,” said Samwer. “Basically, the whole summer. A man could hide away for a few months if he needed to.” He winked.
“Luckily, you look somewhat like your namesake the Emperor Marcan,” remarked Balthasar. “Not quite as elegant or good looking, but we can knock you into shape.”
“Why do you help me?” asked Marcan.
“These are chaotic times,” said Balthasar. “We all help each other.”
“And you’re going to make us rich,” laughed Jed.
Chapter 6
The small of Loreticus’s back needed physical force to straighten it after the coach ride. He laid the warm palms of his hands against his hips and coaxed his spine up, pointing his rubbery face to the dry sun. There was the smell of ripe desert plants in the air, a citric and resilient aroma.
Threatening shadows had been running around the edges of his vision for the last few days, and he had taken to travelling under the protection of Marcan’s old guard. If he were Antron, he would seize this opportunity by burying the emperor’s influencer with the swiftest of stabs. But with luck, Antron wasn’t as smart as Loreticus, and Loreticus’s reputation still gave pause to even the wartiest of soldiers.
“Stay in the carriage,” he muttered to Pello as he banged empty his pipe on the edge of the carriage door. The boy’s hair was mussed on one side where he had hibernated against the padding for the entirety of the journey. Loreticus envied him and his pettiness bubbled to the surface, as it always did when he was wound up with stress. “By the way, stop using the word ‘very’. It’s lazy. There’s always a more appropriate word which I’d rather hear. You have been doing it again since yesterday.” Pello watched him walk away from the door, then gawped around for someone who might explain what he had missed in his slumber.
Before Loreticus stood a brutal fortress. It was officially a guest house, but with its pocked mud walls reaching five storeys high, perforated only by the smallest of windows, and a single robust door which remained bolted, no visitor could have a doubt about its use. His servants were already engaged with the soldiers, offering documents and the bureaucratic disdain which was in itself as efficient as a wax seal.
Loreticus’s entourage had stopped out of arrow flight of the walls. Around him the air was perfumed by the formal gardens, lacing the air with jasmine, lavender and honeysuckle. Small flights of swallows dashed over the land, harvesting evening insects. In the distance, far to his back, were the ever-present mountains, growing angrier and feeling closer over the last decade, their peaks snaring purple thunderclouds as they raced at the capital. The red fort reared up in front of them, staring at its visitors.
His servants beckoned to the carriage driver and Loreticus struck up a walk alongside it, his back now straight and responsive again. Within ten yards of the walls, the evening shadows had won and the air became humid and cold. Inside a huge door, a compact room with slits for murder, then a broad area for hand-to-hand fighting. Beyond that a reception room with polished brass and rare glassware. On one table sat a modest salt pot, half-full, suffering from age and impecunity. The fact there was a ceremonial pot meant both that she was expecting visitors and was still of some influence, Loreticus noted. The fact it wasn’t replenished was the sign of her waning reach.
“I’d like to wash,” he said out loud as he strode into the room. No-one had greeted him, so he addressed it to no-one. At his age, dust and dirt stuck in the lines of his face and broug
ht them out in relief like an actor’s amateur cosmetics.
It was a long time since he had worn the tight armour, and he never appreciated the reminder of the smooth mounds which had appeared around his waist. Even though he wanted to change into his dry tunic, he didn’t want to expose his pear-shaped torso to a room now filling with military men. He settled for the attentions of his valet, who removed his breast plate and mopped his face and neck with a dampened cloth before quickly and unremarkably scooping out his master’s armpits. Loreticus shrugged as if he were putting on a new cloak and continued walking, the soldiers of the fort leading the way.
Dess, estranged wife of General Iskandar, stepped from a shadowed doorway in perfect time to welcome him to the inner courtyard garden. Loreticus had seen her many times before but had only spoken to her once, when she married the famous soldier who rose from the ranks. That day she had been the bride at her wedding to Iskandar, the handsome and glowing battlefield genius and one of the four great generals alongside Antron, Ferran and Marcan. They had watched a parade along the corda of his cavalry, winged hussars and heavily armoured knights. A day ago, Iskandar was at Antron’s new rooms with wine in hand, his handsome face rigid. Dess was now here, exiled as the mistress of a foolish emperor.
She was more regal than he had seen her before, even at her wedding. It wasn’t a true elegance, one which was inherent in the bones of the person, but one observed and adopted. She had taken the sun, a habit which wasn’t common in the capital. Her heavy lips were dark in now golden skin, her brows broad but perfectly shaped. But her eyes were darker, with an aspect of introspection which hadn’t been there before.
