Silence of the Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  “The way Tolemy demands,” she said. “Do you think He is unaware of your plans? You allowed the heir of Feren to live. This was no accident. You will support his claim to the throne. He’ll be your second puppet—won’t he? The first one sits in Harkana. One by one, you claim the lower kingdoms. My priests say you have a Rachin and a boy from the Wyrre.” She made up that last one, but she presumed it was true and he made no effort to correct Sarra.

  “The king in Harkana is not my son, and I can declare him a fraud at any time.”

  “Is this the will of Tolemy—or is it your will, Sarra? Whose mouth am I addressing?”

  “The one you will obey,” she said, but it was not quite the wording she had hoped to use. Time, however, was in short supply. The knife was already at Merit’s neck.

  “I am a mouthpiece,” she said, regaining her composure. “You’ve guessed that our lord Tolemy lives outside of the Empyreal Domain, and I will not deny it. The domain is empty, but our emperor is close and He cares dearly about His city.”

  “Does He?” Mered asked, and she knew he spoke with honesty, with genuine curiosity. He was desperate to know the empire’s secrets.

  “Yes, Tolemy speaks to me, and to you. I will prove it by showing you His wisdom. Send the queen regent to Barca. She has the support of the Harkan generals. Merit was all but king when she left, and little has changed. As his ally, she will enable Barca to forge a treaty with the Harkan generals. This will end the conflict in the south and bring peace to your new kingdom. The Harkan Army will return to Harwen, and you will order Merit to accompany them. She will support your new king, as will Tolemy. If you leave the Harkan Army in the field, Harwen will remain open for the taking, and the bastard and his kingsguard will take it. You’ve already witnessed their fierceness in battle. Your whole army couldn’t contain them—”

  There was no more time. The haruspex raised his blade, the knife trembled at Merit’s neck.

  “Stop this!” she commanded. “Get that crown off her head. Have the girl treated decently and sent on her way,” she said, gasping.

  Mered showed no fear. No disappointment, nor any thanks. She swore he never blinked, but he did raise a single finger and the haruspex rested his knife.

  21

  “Well?” Merit asked Mered’s soldiers as they opened the door to her carriage. “Will Barca chop off my head or offer me a royal welcome?”

  The two men shrugged. Her escorts—Tehran and Ori, the soldiers who’d ridden her from the house of Saad to the desert camp of the traitor, Barca—had gone off that morning to make some bargain with the rebel. They went out with a scroll bearing Mered’s seal and a large chest, which no doubt contained gold. In her experience, a good amount of coin settled an argument better than any sword or scroll. And the chest was gone when they returned, so she guessed it had done the job.

  “Barca, will he see me?” she asked.

  “Damned if I know,” said Tehran.

  Ori explained, “They took the gold and said we could ride you to the camp, but you’ll be on your own after that—sound fair?”

  “It sounds like my only choice. If you want fair, ride me to the Harkan camp and I’ll make certain you are both treated fairly, paid your weight in gold—double if you like.”

  Ori coughed a bit and rumpled his lip. “There’s no use in having gold if you can’t spend it. If I don’t deliver you to Barca, I’ll be short both of these”—he waved his hands in the air—“and maybe a foot.”

  “Ride me to Barca’s camp,” she said. “The least you can do is save me the indignity of walking.” And that might be the last indignity I’m saved.

  The horses trotted over the low desert scrublands, ferrying Merit to the entry of Barca’s makeshift camp, which consisted of nothing more than a line of shields dug into the sand and the dozen or so fighting men who stood before them. They surrounded Merit’s horse and looked her up and down, suspicion in their eyes. They wore the bronze armor of the Protector, but they had slashed the symbols on their chest plates, grinding them smooth at the center and replacing the old mark with a new one, a broken circle. She guessed it was Barca’s mark, a rather obvious dig at the golden circle of the Protector.

  She stepped down from the horse and announced herself, “I am Merit Hark-Wadi, Queen—”

  “There ain’t one of us who cares to hear a list of your titles. Walk yourself over here. We’ve got an especially nice place saved for you,” said a bucktoothed soldier with a day’s growth on his chin, a man from Solus by the looks of him. A curious bit of chuckling followed his words, which made Merit think that her accommodations would be anything but nice.

  A short walk past a dozen or so tents, many of them empty, led to a rather large shelter.

  “This is it,” said the soldier. “Find a cozy place for yourself inside,” he said, a smirk on his face, a bit of hoarse laughter.

  “I’m here to meet with your master,” said Merit. She did not know what title the rebel had granted himself.

  “You’re here to rot like the rest of the rabble, so get yourself inside that tent,” said the soldier. He drew his blade, but Merit had already backed away. Her bruises still ached from her last encounter with a fighting man.

  She lifted the tent flap, and a foul smell came rushing out of it, but she entered anyway. Merit expected to find captured soldiers or servants inside the tent, but to her surprise the men and women who huddled within it wore rich clothes, transparent layers of pleated linen, and the air was heavy with the smell of scented oils, the aroma of fragrant lilies filling up her nose. Unfortunately, there were other odors. The smell of rot was everywhere, and no amount of perfume could hide that stink. It was in the air and in their clothes. It made Merit’s eyes sting.

  “Who are you?” asked a man who wore a silken robe colored green like malachite and a great scarf that wound about his neck, the muslin so fine she could see straight through it to the many folds of his wrinkled skin. He spoke with the accent of a wellborn man, so she guessed these were the highborn of Sola, taken captive during Barca’s conquest in the south. Hardly the rabble, she thought.

  “I’m no one,” said Merit. She saw no need to reveal her identity. She covered her mouth with her sleeve and sat, taking stock of her surroundings as she settled in. A lifeless body lay at the far side of the tent. She tried not to wince when she saw it. The corpse had been tossed atop a heap of filth, laid there as if it were just another bit of refuse. These prisoners were obviously wealthy citizens of Sola, but they’d been brought low, lower than low, degraded in every way.

  “You certainly aren’t one of us,” said the man in the silken robe. He eyed her clothes and her eyes too, which were a shade lighter than their own.

  “Be glad you are not from Sola,” snarled an elderly woman.

  “Why?” asked Merit.

  “Because each week he hangs one of us. He does it just to make the boys clap. Another rich man dead. His coin is your coin—something like that. That’s what he tells them,” said the woman.

  “He’s made them hungry for gold and loot. He’s turned the holy army of the Protector into a band of criminals,” said an older man with a white beard, his skin amber and wrinkled with age. “Who are you?” he asked, a bit of disdain in his voice. They knew she was not one of them; she had her mother’s pale eyes.

  “I’m no one,” she said again, quietly. She still saw no point in revealing her identity. Sooner or later, someone would come for her, and she hoped whoever it was would lead her to Barca and not the hangman’s noose, but no soldiers arrived. The sun beat down on the tent, but there was no water and no food. When one of the men went to complain, the guards beat him without mercy. He lay in the sand, bleeding, and no one came to his aid. Not one of the men or women in the tent paid him the slightest bit of attention. There was no humanity here, no understanding. There was only fear. She saw it. They feared that if they came to the man’s aid they’d be beaten as well, so no one moved.

  An hour later t
he guards tossed the body upon the heap, and the stench doubled.

  The stink of the place brought back thoughts of the haruspex. She’d waited for her death, but it had not come. Her mother had saved her; she’d made some deal with Mered. Sarra had staved off the impossible and had done it at the very last moment. Merit had not seen her mother in ten years. She’d barely been able to recall her face and they hadn’t had time to talk. There hadn’t even been the possibility of a conversation. There was only time to pass the note.

  That slip of linen had changed everything. Sarra had obtained Merit’s freedom with the help of that message, or so she assumed. It was all guesswork. Sarra and Merit hadn’t even spoken, but she had stolen a hundred careful glances, studying her mother as she parlayed for Merit’s freedom. Well, perhaps the word “freedom” was a bit of an exaggeration. The stench inside that tent almost made her wish she were dead. It certainly made her eyes burn.

  The sting abated when the flap opened and a waft of clean air swept past her nose. A soldier entered. Without ceremony, he took hold of the old man, the one who had spoken to Merit. He grabbed him by the arm and twisted the limb until a loud snap pierced the air.

  “No,” the man cried out in protest. “Dammit, I could buy you a hundred times over. If it’s coin—”

  The soldier knocked the elderly man across the jaw, drawing blood, but the prisoner was undeterred. “I’ll pay you in land,” he said, his voice raspy. “There are treasures a soldier—” A second hit disfigured the elderly man’s jaw, knocking it out of place, silencing him. The soldier glanced around, his eyes settling on Merit. “Barca wants to see you. Just let me string this fellow up.” He spoke with such nonchalance that even Merit—who had often sent men to their deaths—swallowed uncomfortably when he spoke.

  The flap closed and everyone inside waited for what came next.

  Somewhere in the distance a crowd cheered, and she guessed the deed was done.

  “He’ll hang you up next, outlander,” said one of highborn.

  Ignoring him, Merit stood and wiped her dress clean. It was not the shining gown of a regent, but she made the best of it, shaking the sand from the cloth, pulling back her long hair to hide her dusty locks.

  “Ah, the girl wants to look pretty while she swings from the rope,” said a highborn woman. She cackled a bit, and some of the others did the same. For her part, Merit cast a dour eye on the woman. She wasn’t headed to the hangman’s noose. The guard motioned to Merit, and she left the tent with as much haste as she could muster. In the distance, a crowd dispersed, leaving a clear view of the gallows.

  “I don’t envy your position,” she said to the soldier. It seemed a gruesome task, but he eyed her strangely.

  “You don’t? Mine’s a place of honor. These well-to-do bastards deserve the rope, and I’m the one who gives it to them. That’s a privilege. I know a dozen good men who’d kill for this job.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” said Merit. “These highborn men and women hail from Solus and so do you. Is there really so much resentment among the common folk?”

  “Resentment?” asked the man. “I suppose. You’ve never lived in the city of the gods—have you?”

  Merit simply shook her head.

  “Barca gives us a bit of respect, or something like it. Why do you think we’re out here in the desert with him?”

  “I see,” said Merit, catching sight of what she guessed was Barca’s tent. It carried the golden crest that belonged to the Protector of the Outer Guard, or the former Protector anyway. Barca had murdered the man.

  The tent lay in one direction, the gallows in the other.

  “What’ll it be?” she asked. “Are we off to the tent, or do you have another rope you’d like to stretch?”

  The guard chucked at that. He was already walking Merit toward the golden tent.

  “I’m to meet the captain, or is he the general?” she asked, still uncertain of Barca’s title. “I heard he promoted himself.”

  “It don’t matter,” said the soldier. “Barca can call himself emperor. Names mean nothing here. And we don’t care for titles either.” He eyed her dress, which was stained, but still finer than those of the common folk.

  “Barca must be eager to meet you, or so I guess. Usually he makes the prisoners stew in their filth for a few days before he sees them. When he does take their call, he makes ’em beg for their freedom, but all they find is the end of the rope.” He shook his hand in the air, imitating the snap of the noose.

  “I used to enjoy that sort of humor, but now that I’ve seen the rope I’m having second thoughts…” said Merit. She’d have said something more, but they’d come to the golden tent.

  “Go on now,” the soldier said. “I’ll be waiting out here, just in case he changes his mind and wants me to string you up with the old man. We do two in a day sometimes,” he said morbidly.

  She slipped through the untethered cloth and entered a surprisingly lavish interior. There were broad trestle tables covered in heaps of scrolls, candles burned down to the base, and great bronze flagons of wine. Mounds of treasure sat in half-ordered heaps. A stack of funereal urns was tossed in alongside a pile of great gilded statues. Here and there, precious vessels dotted the floor. A pair of braziers ornamented by dancing fauns framed a rather kingly chair, but no one sat in it. At the far corner, a man in a simple tunic stood among four or five officers, each of them wearing the ceremonial armor of a captain in the Outer Guard.

  Merit knocked into something hard and tinny, making a sound she hoped would announce her presence. The man she guessed was Barca whispered something to the others, and a moment later they dispersed. As they did so, he waited at the broad table, sizing her up, perhaps. He did not speak, not yet. He waited, watching the tent flap fall closed with a whoosh. Then he left her, disappearing momentarily, speaking to the guards outside before returning to Merit.

  “I needed to make certain we were alone and that no one would enter my tent,” he said. It was an odd sort of introduction. For a marauder—a man who was said to be a thief, a traitor, and a murderer—Haren Barca was surprisingly humble and courteous. He looked to be in his fifth decade, hair gray, skin lined with deep folds, scars on his cheeks and brow. It was a soldier’s face, his eyes hard, his gaze distant. He took her hand and offered her a deep and sustained bow. It was the sort of genuflection one gave to royalty—the kind one presented to the queen regent, not some prisoner in a dirty robe. He bowed with grace, but without explanation. What is this? she wondered. What’s going on here?

  He indicated that she should sit. “Please, I know it’s been a long ride, and only Mithra knows what they did to you in Solus. I’m sorry you were put with the other captives, but it needed to be done—for appearance’s sake.” He poured wine for two and offered her the first cup. She was parched and drank eagerly.

  “Is there anything else you need? Immediately, I mean. Are you injured?”

  “There are many things I need,” said Merit. “But the wine will do, and an explanation of some sort. Why the royal treatment?” she asked, her voice blunt to the point of rudeness.

  “Yes,” he said, pacing a bit, as if he needed to think, to explain something of complexity. “There’s much you don’t know. This whole thing, my great plan, has become a bit of a mess. But there is time to set things right. I’ll need your help, and you’ll give it.”

  “Will I? Perhaps you’ve forgotten, but the Harkans have somewhat of a grudge against your folk. I’d rather hang than help a man from Sola.”

  He nodded his understanding. “Yes, yes, exactly. I couldn’t agree with you more.” He took a deep breath, let it out. “I am not Haren Barca.”

  “Then who are you? Some bastard son of Solus? Have you come to reclaim a title or perhaps a seat in one of the great houses?” she asked mockingly.

  “Yes and no. I’ve haven’t an ounce of their blood, though I was raised for a time in Solus. I spent my early years in the high desert, in seclusion, mostly. I
t was the only way I could be raised, in secret, always moving, never existing. You see, there is no Haren Barca. It’s just a name I chose when I joined the army of the Protector—when I become one of them.”

  “What are you talking about?” Merit was wild with curiosity.

  “I’m Barden Hark-Wadi, the younger brother of Arko.”

  “The one who died at birth?”

  “They buried another boy and sent me into hiding. Koren had already fought a war over Arko. He couldn’t save me from the priory with his sword, so he chose a different route, a more tactful one but no less difficult. After I was born—my father, your grandfather—gave me to one of his generals. I spent my first years in Harwen, but I looked too much like my father. To hide my face, they sent me into the high desert. I went with nothing more than a cadre of soldiers and enough gold to trade with the outlanders.”

  “Alive,” she said, still shocked. “Barden is alive?” She could hardly believe the words, though they did make some sense. He was fighting a revolt from within the Protector’s apparatus, pitting one portion of the army against the other. It explained the ruthlessness of the hangings, the marauding. This was a man set upon revenge.

  Merit had a hundred questions. No, a thousand. Who else was party to this secret? And why had Barca not reached out to her sooner? The queries swirled in her head, multiplying by the minute. She did not even know where to start, but he put a finger to her lips before she could speak. “We must be careful and quiet. These men think I am leading a revolt of the common man, the lowborn versus the high, that I am taking them to Solus so they can pillage and take back what the wealthy stole from them.”

  “I see, so what is it then?”

  “This?” he asked, his grin widening. “This is the war your father dreamed of but never dared, the task your grandfather took up but never finished, the battle our forebears fought two centuries ago, the fight Nirus Wadi won then lost.” Barca produced the golden sword of the Protector of the Outer Guard. “We’re going to fight it again. This is the next Harkan revolt—our final revolt. This time we will not negotiate, we will not even attempt to occupy Solus. No, we’re going to burn it to the ground.”