Sunset Mantle

by Alter S. Reiss

“Good,” she replied. She let go of his hand, stroked his cheek. “I cannot be. And neither can you. If you have the strength, go to the afternoon services. If you do not, wait, but no longer than you must. The Antach knows what Radan is, but he cannot say it. If you are seen, the blood on your mantle will say what it is forbidden for mouths to speak.”

  “He will kill us,” said Cete. “When he sees that I am not shunned, and do not fear to show my face in the church. He will send men to kill us, to paint our house with our blood.”

  “Perhaps he shall,” said Marelle. “But if we are going to die in the defense of Reach Antach, we should die as best we can. This will do more good than being burned in our house by tribes brought by the city clans.”

  Cete found himself smiling. That was what had drawn him to Marelle, that was what bound him to her. She fought. She fought to keep her art, she fought to keep her place in society, and though night rose up around her, she fought like a ten-year veteran with a waist covered in merit chains.

  They could leave. Reach Antach was doomed, and nobody would blame them if they left. Even if they had no other savings, they would get a better than fair price for her house and orchard, and they could live somewhere else. Cete didn’t bother to mention it. Anywhere else, they would be nothing more than outcasts; in the clan cities, wealthy outcasts could buy safety, the semblance of honor, but Marelle would be able to hear what people thought with every word, and Cete would see it in every eye. All that, for what? As Marelle had said, to live to die in bed?

  “Board shut the windows,” said Cete. “But leave a lamp lit, so that I can see how things are when I return. Draw three days of water from the well, and keep it in covered pots. If there is time, buy seasoned wood, and shape it into spear shafts.”

  Cete lowered his feet down to the floor, raised himself up. Marelle did not try to aid him; she let him stand on his own. He was weak, certainly, but not so weak as he had been the day before. “I shall go to the afternoon service,” he said, “and I shall do my duty by you when I return, wife.”

  Marelle colored, a red flush rising in her cheeks, and in the pale places of her neck. “As you will, husband,” she replied. As the proverb said, fruit tastes its best just before the rot. Life was best when standing in the shadow of death.

  It was not a short walk from Marelle’s house—from Cete’s house, now—to the church, and he was weaker than he had supposed. Twice he had to stop to catch his breath, and towards the end, he could feel his back begin to bleed again. But he walked into the church when the scholars and priests were just finishing their additional prayers, before the general afternoon services.

  Cete had sat among the guests during his first visit to the church of Reach Antach, and then among the captains of the Reach army. Now he sat in the section below the balcony, which was reserved for outcasts and criminals. As expected, none sat there with him, and as the church filled, his old seat among the army captains was left conspicuously empty.

  Radan was sitting up on the dais, wearing a fine prayer mantle, all red and gold. He gave Cete a flat, expressionless look, and then turned his face forward and up, to God. The doctor saw him as well, gave a short shrug that managed to convey both disapproval and admiration, and turned back to her prayers. Then the congregation began singing, “the great God of beginnings and endings,” and Cete joined them, joined the voices that rose up in the hymn of praise.

  He had considered his own inclinations, and Marelle’s, but now in the church, in the face of God, Cete was forced to wonder if he had right on his side. Radan had given orders—wicked orders, but that was on his soul—and Cete had disobeyed. Marelle had saved him from the full consequences of that, but the scar he wore on his forehead was rightfully given. According to law, he was an outcast. What then was he doing in the house of God?

  “The God who has taught us to love good and hate evil,” they sang, women’s voices mingling with men’s, law mingling with praise. There was a requirement to love good and to hate evil. Tradition said that one should love before hating, and there was little love in what Cete was doing. Still, the law came before tradition, and what Radan had done—to take a contract with the intent of harming the one who purchased his labor, to conspire in the destruction of a reach, and the murder of the people of the reach—was evil. Cete was no scholar, but what he was doing was within the law.

  The hymns ended, and the congregation stood for their silent prayers; some asked for health, or good fortune in their labors, with their families. Cete prayed for strength, and for courage, and for God to grant his blessing to what Cete intended to do. Then the Antach blessed the congregation, as did the priest, who spoke for a time on the laws of fasting season. Then came the closing hymns. The prayer had left Cete tired, so he sat for a time on the bench, gathering his strength for the walk back home. One of the captains general in the Antach clan army came up to him as he was sitting, his prayer mantle folded under his arm.

  “Blessings to the married,” he said. Cete had seen him approaching, but to hear him talk was so unexpected that Cete started, did not know what to say.

  “Thank you,” he said, collecting himself.

  “How is your back?” asked the captain general. “Are things well with you and Marelle?”

  “The back is improving,” said Cete. “And Marelle is well. Thank you.” He was no longer under orders, but his replies were stiff, his back straight. It would be difficult to let go of the habits formed in a life under arms.

  The captain bowed his head. “If you would not mind, I would walk you to the gates of the Reach. The day is hot, and you have lost much blood.”

  Cete looked up at the dais. The Antach was no longer wearing his prayer mantle. He did not seem so sleekly confident as he had been when Cete had sat among the guests, but he was freshly shaven, and he talked with the priest easily, showing no sign of nervousness. The priest seemed troubled, her eyes dark, and Radan was a thundercloud. So. Cete’s gift had been understood, and accepted; the Antach would rub the shame of what had been done to Cete into the face of his general, until something broke.

  “Thank you,” said Cete. “It would be a comfort.”

  As they walked through Reach Antach, Cete and the captain of the Antach talked about the laws the scholar-priest had expounded, about the coming olive harvest, and some remedies the captain’s family had passed down for keeping wounds clean, so they did not suppurate. Inconsequential matters, for the most part. The point was for them to be seen talking together.

  Some of the men of the Reach came up and blessed Cete on his wedding, or asked this or that of the captain of the Antach. Others shut their doors as Cete passed, spat on the corner stones of buildings, or turned their eyes away. Perhaps they were partisans of Radan Termith, and opposed to the Antach. Or perhaps they did not wish to see a man scarred for disobeying orders walking the streets of their Reach.

  When they reached the southern gate, the captain hesitated. “It’s a dangerous time,” he said. “And your lady wife is known as a fine hostess. If it is not too much of an imposition, perhaps some of my friends will stop by later in the evening, for the meal after the service.”

  Cete hesitated. It was a fine offer, and showed a generosity of spirit on the part of the Antach. All the same, if he were to accept a bodyguard of the clan army, it would undo much of what he intended. That he was not shunned in the church, that a man of standing chose to talk with him in the street, these were things that no court would hold against the Antach, no matter how corrupt the court might be. But if the Antach were to assign a bodyguard, that would indicate a lack of respect for the law, and a lack of respect for Radan, and give the Termith cause to march on the Reach.

  “It is a kind thought,” said Cete, “but I am afraid that we have not laid in provisions for guests; the marriage was a sudden one, after all. Perhaps in a week or two, when matters are properly arranged.”

  The captain did not mistake his meaning. He looked to one side, and then the other; there was
nobody close enough to hear. “I thank you,” he said, “and the Antach thanks you. But he bade me ask: Why?”

  “Because of an embroidered mantle, and a blind woman’s smile,” said Cete, without thinking. He paused, considered the question properly. “Because I am a fighting man,” he said. “I fight.”

  The captain shook his head. “You do,” he said. “Like few men I’ve ever seen.”

  Cete shrugged. “Most aren’t given a fight of this sort,” he said. “Anyone in your ranks might do the same.”

  “I hope you are right,” said the captain. “But what might be done is different from what has been done. Come what may, so long as any who love the Reach Antach remain living, you will be well regarded.”

  Cete bowed. There was nothing to be said to that.

  “But I keep you too long from your lady wife,” said the captain. “Go in good health.”

  “To you and yours,” replied Cete, and he went down to the house that Marelle had built against the day she would be cast out. Waiting for him there was a meal of venison cooked with figs, of greens and pomegranate.

  When the dinner was done, Cete did his duty by Marelle, as he had promised. He was long out of practice, and his back still ached and bled, but she was eager and kind, and his love for her was so great that all else was forgotten. Cete could not recall a time of greater joy, not in his youth, nor in his years of manhood. They were in that bed together for a long time, taking the sweetness of life in the shadow of death.

  Chapter 6

  The next day, and the day after, Cete did not go far from the house. Because they were lower on the slope than the houses next to the wall, the neighbors could see down into the fenced orchard. Twice they raised a cry of burglars, though everyone knew that the men who had climbed the fence were not there to filch unripe fruit, or to take wood contrary to the law. They would not be able to come during the daytime.

  Cete slept in the day, and remained awake at night, a spear close at hand. For Radan to do what his clan had sent him to the Antach to do, he needed the confidence of at least some of the men of the Reach. Those who could not abide by what he had done to Cete were already lost to him; those who could swallow the abuse of the law would not be so ready to let pass signs of weakness. Going to church had been a challenge to which there could be only one answer.

  Despite the care that Marelle took, despite the blue of his mantle and the pomegranate and greens with his meal, Cete’s back still pained him whenever he took a sudden motion, or when he awoke from sleep. If he could, he would have left what needed to be done for a week, or even two. But if it was left too long, he would have to fight on his enemies’ terms, where they chose. On the fourth night after his wedding, Cete stretched, tucked his axe into his belt, and went to the door.

  “I fear the stones of some of the tree-gutters have come loose during the day,” he said. “I’ll go and attend to them.”

  Marelle was sitting in her high-backed chair, working some piece of embroidery. “Of course,” she said. “Before you go, see your commission; I’ve almost finished it.”

  The house was in near darkness. It suited Cete well, and while Marelle could still see well enough to tell light from dark, she did not prefer the light. At that, though, Cete kindled a lamp, and brought it over to where Marelle was working.

  She was sewing white thread on a white fabric. Silk thread and linen fabric, by the look of the cloth, and the way the thread shimmered in the lamplight. Marelle tied off the string, unfolded the cloth that she had been embroidering.

  It was a funeral shroud. Cete took it from her, ran his hands over the design. Cypress around the border, with rabbits and owls in among the branches. Above the trees were all the stars of the heavens, perfect in their places. It was as fine a work as the mantle. He could not have hoped for anything better.

  He would wear it once, and only those closest to him as he was laid down in the earth would see the embroidery; from even a few feet away, it would seem a simple white cloth. “This does me too much credit,” he said. He did not have so little regard for the honor of other men, his love of beautiful things not so untainted by a desire to be seen possessing them.

  “No,” said Marelle. “Not enough. But if the stones of the tree-gutters have come loose, you ought to see to them. I would not wish to lose the water when the rainy season comes.”

  “I will not be long,” said Cete. “It is a small repair.”

  As he went out he took one of the spears he had prepared in the days since his wedding. Seasoned wood, and with a steel head he had spent long hours sharpening. It would serve.

  It was a warm night, and the moon near full; it was almost as light outside as it had been within. Cete stood for a moment, enjoying the scent of artemesia and honeysuckle, and watching the shadows.

  There were three of them, slinking like jackals in the shadows of the walls and trees. They had come into his orchard; they had made themselves free within his walls. He could feel his blood rising, the shaking of the hands, the tightening of the vision.

  Three was too many, if they were any good at all. If he charged in, axe swinging, he’d be cut down. He let his shoulders slope, leaned against the spear as though he needed it to support his weight. It was not much of a performance, but it was what they’d hoped to see; perhaps it would be enough.

  They came in, closer, their boots crunching down the summer-dry earth beneath the trees, the faint clink of mail audible over the distant hooting of an owl and the buzzes of the night insects.

  Cete had not let himself feel rage at Radan Termith, and what the Reach general had done. It was too large a thing; there were too many ways his wrath would serve his enemy. But now, in Marelle’s orchard, fury was rising up from where his toes gripped the earth, up the back of his spine. Three to slay one injured man, one blind woman? Three in armor? His anger filled him so full there was nothing else beside anger. The spear rose up in his hand, and he threw, no craft, no plan, his hand moving without any act of thought or will. He threw so hard that the spear seemed to flicker out from his hand into one of those shadows, catching the man in the shoulder and driving him back into an olive tree.

  His axe was in his hand, though he could not recall pulling it from his belt, and he was in among the other two, though he could not remember crossing that ground. There was the ring of steel against steel, sparks from axe and blade. They did not expect anything like this. Cete had not expected anything like this. It was not the measured practice of morning or evening routine; it was not even the clash of arms on a battlefield. It was the clawing of a wild beast, injured in its lair.

  He came in, and the sword of one of the men cut in along his arm. The pain was . . . it was become pleasure; he howled in the joy of it, struck out with his axe, cutting through armor and chest, laughed to see dark blood in the moonlight.

  The other man stepped back when he should have stepped in, tried to line up a proper attack. Cete came in too fast for that, his axe swinging around, hungry. The man was pale in the moonlight; he held up his hand to stop the blow, rather than his axe or a knife. Cete’s blade sheared through his fingers and buried itself in his shoulder. The man staggered back, screaming. Another blow with the axe, and he was dead as well.

  Cete howled, a long, ululating cry more like a tribal yell than anything taught in the cities. It was not enough; three men were not enough. He had his axe in his hand and the pain in his arm, and there was a man in the city who was his enemy. He could go and slay, and glory in the slaying forever.

  He breathed, once, twice, fought back the nausea he had felt at Marelle’s bedside, that he had felt when Mase had been beating him to death. There was a constellation of pain from his back, there was a cut along the length of his arm, and there were two dead men lying at Cete’s feet. This had been the madding, the real thing.

  The hills still echoed with Cete’s howl. The echoes sounded no different than what had burst from Eber Hainst, when he could no longer bear the leadership of the
Hainst of the Hainst. It was well that he had not allowed the captain of the Antach’s guard to keep watch over his house. If there had been anyone else standing in the orchard with him, friend or foe, that man would only have lived if he had killed Cete.

  Cete walked over to the man whom he had hit with the spear. He was still standing, impaled—the spear had gone through the mail shirt, and the shoulder, and through the mail again, the head buried deep into the tree. The man shivered as he stood there, like a man struck with fever, or one caught in a snowstorm. Perhaps it was the wound, or perhaps fear. It didn’t matter.

  “Please,” he said, as Cete came close. “Please, I had no choice! I—”

  Cete pushed his head up and back, and took the man’s throat out with the hook-bladed tribal knife he had won in the river-cut field. The men who had come to kill him and his wife were dead, but the business would not end if he took half measures.

  From one of the trees beyond the wall, an owl hooted, and out in the valley beyond, a jackal yowled its response. There’d be meat enough for them, and soon. Cete wrenched the spear out of the dead man’s shoulder, and let the corpse fall to the ground. The tip was bent by the impact, blunted. When he was done with his work in the garden, he would have to grind that down, if he wanted to trust the spear again.

  With that done, he came to the door, which had been closed behind him. “Marelle?” he said, wearily.

  There was the sound of the bar being moved, and then the door opened. Marelle flung herself forward like a stone from a sling. If he had not caught her, she would have fallen, she was moving so fast, and she could not see.

  Cete caught her and held her, his arms wrapping around her, heedless of his cut, of the pain caused by the way the skin stretched. She stood in his arms, and wept, beautiful in the moonlight.

  They stood there for a time, beneath the stars, and said nothing. Finally, Marelle’s shudders grew fewer, she gained control of her breath. “How many?” she asked.