Orhan smiled again. ‘Can you, now? Not receiving one yourself, then?’
‘Several, My Lord.’ Gallus ran his finger down a list of payments, raising his eyebrows slightly as he came to the scored-through Vorley and Emmereth entries. ‘This … and this … and this … come to me.’ His eyes met Orhan’s. ‘One of them might, perhaps, be considered to continue to remain necessary? For the moment, at least …’
‘It might.’ Sensible man. Quick and dynamic. Took his chances but didn’t push it. Could go far, Orhan thought. He’d have to look into promoting him. Though Darath might not like it. Knew he’d always had a weakness for gold hair.
Chapter Forty
They left Alxine where he lay, scattering a little sand over him but otherwise abandoning his body to the crows. They had no real choice: they had nothing to bury him with, and none of them wished to linger. As he was Aelish, from the uncharted territories on the other side of the Bitter Sea, none of them knew even what god he had worshipped, or what he had believed would happen to him now that he had died. Eternal feasting with his kin in the afterlife, Tobias said vaguely. Or possibly a big nasty toothy tentacled thing came and ate your soul. Ten years, he said, he’d known Alxine, and Alxine never really mentioned it, so it couldn’t have been particularly important.
‘Not among the useless things they teach princes, then?’ asked Rate.
Tobias shook his head at him. ‘Don’t bother the boy, now, lad.’ Marith was sitting on the sand, staring up into the sky, his eyes following where the dragon had gone. He scratched heavily at his face, looking grey and drawn.
Tobias poured a libation of wine beside the body. ‘Wherever your soul ends up, peace,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Whether that’s the beer halls of your ancestors or the digestive system of a squid.’ He poured three cups and passed them to the others.
Marith smiled at him bitterly as he took his. ‘Should let more people get killed more often,’ he said harshly as he drank.
Thalia did not join them, standing apart. A male thing, she judged. Men who had fought and killed together. Alxine was dead. That was the end of it. She went up to Marith afterwards and placed her hand on his arm. He shrugged her off and walked away. Anger in him. And fear.
Ansikanderakesis Amrakane.
Sikandemethemis. That word she knew. An obscure honorific, barely used outside of a few old hymns, the words of an ancient chant. It meant ‘lord’. ‘Master’. ‘King’.
Not a Literan word. Itheralik.
‘Marith.’ She followed him. ‘It wasn’t your fault. You saved the rest of us. Life and death have to be balanced. People have to die.’
‘“We live. We die. For these things, we are grateful”?’ Bitterness and dark in his eyes. ‘I’m a dragonlord now, I suppose. Two dragons I’ve met, two I’ve mastered. Almost.’ He rubbed at his face again. ‘Just leave me alone a while, Thalia.’
They rode on, Tobias glancing behind him once at the dark heap in the distance, upon which the crows were now descending. He threw a stone and they scattered but returned in a moment, calling. Followed the dragon, perhaps.
Again, they rode as long as they could, well into the darkness. ‘It did say it would leave us alone?’ asked Rate anxiously as they finally drew up to make camp. ‘It won’t come while we sleep?’
‘Not a lot we could do if it did,’ Tobias grunted.
‘It said it would leave us untroubled,’ Marith said slowly. He rode close beside the cart, slumped in the saddle, all the life gone out of him. Dismounted slowly and stiffly, like an old man, walked a few paces and sat down in the sand. ‘It should keep its word. If not … If not, I suppose I’ll have to kill it. But as I’m planning to drink everything we have left and then sleep like the dead, we’ll just all have to hope everything is fine until the morning.’
Shadows in the dark. Things calling him. She saw it, as she watched him. Ansikanderakesis. Ansikanderakesis Amrakane. Lord. Master. King.
It was a barren place they had stopped in, a flat depression in a long slope of shifting gravel that moved under the horses’ hooves. A tiny pool of muddy dirty water, a few insects buzzing wearily over its surface. A couple of scrub bushes, half-dead and desiccated, clinging on in the scree. But they were so tired now.
Thalia helped Tobias manage the horses, something she was beginning to find she was good at, trying to overcome her fear of them. The size of the creatures still unnerved her.
‘You’ve just seen a bloody dragon,’ Tobias muttered at her. ‘How can a horse seem big to you?’
‘That was a dragon,’ she said simply. ‘It’s not a human thing. These are. They’re so big, but they do what we tell them.’
‘He did what I told him, for a while. You’ve just got to treat them right. Break them, then make them your friend.’
She looked at him.
‘You’re a fool, girl,’ Tobias said shortly. ‘Can’t you see that? Look, when we get to Immish … I could give you some money. A couple of talents. One of the horses, even. You don’t … You don’t have to stay with us. With him.’
Thalia gave the roan horse some grain and said nothing.
‘We’re running out of supplies,’ Tobias said after a while. ‘Better hope we get down to the grasslands soon. Got two spare horses now, of course. Shame horses can’t eat horsemeat.’
He was trying to frighten her. Shock her. ‘How long will it be?’ This was the longest Thalia had ever spoken to him.
‘Till the Immish border? Four or five days, still, I should think. Unless we’re lost, of course. Look, girl. Thalia. Listen: I mean it about the money and the horse. Think about it, yeah? Face like yours, you don’t seem stupid, either … you really don’t need to stay with him. You’re better than him. You don’t know him like I do. Believe me on that.’
Thalia dug her nails into her palms. I am the Chosen of the Lord of Living and Dying, she thought. The words of life and death are written on my skin. Child killer. Bringer of light. The holiest woman in Irlast.
You think I don’t know what he is?
‘I don’t have to stay with him, no. I know that. I do have some power of my own, you know.’
He snorted. ‘Just think about it, yeah?’
Marith appeared beside them. His face was bone-weary, but he smiled gently and took the roan horse’s rein from her hands.
‘You shouldn’t be doing that, beautiful girl,’ he said softly. ‘You sit and eat and go to sleep. I’ll manage what needs doing here.’
‘Thank you.’
He smiled sadly. ‘You don’t need to thank me, Thalia.’
She flashed a smile almost of triumph at Tobias.
Tobias shook his head and went to join Rate.
They made a small fire, a little huddle of a few sticks that smoked and gave off a pungent, bitter smell. Horribly exposed, it looked out there in the night, a beacon to great green eyes. But it seemed horrible too not to have a fire, to sit cold and blind. They did not bother to cook food or make tea, but sat edgily around the tiny flames eating hard, stale bread.
‘He did say he thought he was cursed,’ said Rate. ‘Newlin, Emit, now him.’
Tobias rolled his eyes. ‘That’s not cursed. Or only in a manner of speaking.’
Marith made a coughing sound. ‘Just bad luck,’ he said.
The fire crackled and spat. The moon was vast in the sky, the stars broken silver. So many. She would not have thought, in the lights and shelter of the city, looking at the little patch of sky above the Temple, that there could be so many. That they could be so frightening. I should be killing a man again tonight, Thalia thought suddenly.
She pressed closer to Marith and he kissed her and they went off to sleep held tight in each other’s arms, like children rather than lovers beneath the abyssal sky. He had done the work that needed doing, drunk only water, cared for Thalia as though she were the one who had done something great and wonderful. He muttered in his sleep, and scratched at his face, and sighed.
When Thalia awoke next morning, she smel
led food cooking. It was already light, the pale white light of morning. A bird seemed to be singing, which confused her. They were in the midst of the desert, surely? The dead place. Yet a bird was singing, and she heard a human voice answer it, trying and failing to whistle.
Marith was gone. She got down from the cart, pulling her cloak around her in the chill of the morning. The sky was pink and golden, still deep blue in the far west but washed over with light. She drew in a deep, long breath of air that was sweet in her mouth. Marith was sitting by the fire, poking a pan in which dried meat was frying. The kettle was boiling for tea. He had his back to her, didn’t see she was watching him. As she watched, the meat sizzled and some of the fat caught, sending up a burst of flame and smoke and a charred smell. He cursed, then laughed, then noticed her.
‘Thalia!’ His face was clean in the clean light. ‘I’m making breakfast! Meat and fried bread. Come and have some.’
Thalia sat down by the fire. Marith solemnly served her burnt fried dried meat and burnt fried stale bread. It stuck to the pan as he scraped it off. Poured her a cup of very strongly brewed tea. She ate carefully and equally solemnly.
‘You can’t cook,’ she said at last.
‘I know.’ He grinned. ‘But since I can command dragons now, I thought I might try it. You would probably have said I couldn’t do either, yesterday morning.’ He took a few sips of tea, then grimaced and poured it away. ‘I won’t be offended. I really cannot seem to learn tea-making. It looks so easy, too.’
Thalia frowned. ‘You shouldn’t waste water. Or food. Tobias will—’
‘I’m not. Look.’ He gestured to the north-east, and Thalia saw, then, the dim shape of trees far away low in the distance.
‘Immish?’
He nodded. ‘Trees. Woods. Fields. Rain. Still a while to them, of course. The whole day, perhaps two. But I’d guess we’re closer than Tobias thought. Once we’re in Immish, there are proper roads, good ones. We can make good time, get better horses. Then one of the eastern ports, Skerneheh or somewhere—’ a look of distaste momentarily crossed his face ‘—and a fast ship up the coast to Ith. And then—’
He broke off. Raised his head, his eyes widening. Thalia looked up too as a great shadow passed above them. The fire flared up in the wind from the beat of vast wings.
The dragon passed overhead, low enough that they saw its scales and the curl of its claws. It spouted flame, but upwards, into the sky. It turned and flew back into the west, gleaming rose-gold in the sun. They saw flame spout again. And then it was no bigger than a bird. And then it was gone.
Thalia let out a long, shaky breath. Marith laughed. ‘And then I’ll make you a queen,’ he said, as if they had not both nearly died.
Birds came increasingly, snapping at little flies. The grass began to appear again, scrub bushes and thorns, lizards and spiders and life. Running water. Only a few days, it had been, but they all leapt at the water, bathing and washing the dust out of their clothes as though it had been years. Marith thought of the other stream, where he had killed a dragon, of the men bathing in the rainwater while Alxine watched. Now he bathed with Thalia, and saw the water run like jewels as she shook out her hair.
‘It’s not fair,’ Rate muttered. ‘That Alxine got so close. Bloody stupid.’ But somehow they didn’t really talk about Alxine, and it didn’t really seem to matter. Yesterday he’d been alive, and the world had been dead. Now he was dead, and the world was coming alive. They were alive, where they might also have been dead.
And he had been killed by a dragon. It was an astonishing way to go. Marith brooded a little, rankled by his own failure to completely control the creature, but also wondered.
After another day Tobias decreed that they were in Immish now, or on the borders at least. Reneneth, the nearest town, couldn’t be more than a few days’ ride away. A different place, different land and sky. Different air, moister, cooler. Different trees from those Thalia knew, taller, thicker, finer leaved; Marith could see wonder in her eyes as she gazed about her, her face confused and delighted by the gradual reawakening of the world around them after the desert. More birds; more flowers; a pair of deer, a mother and child, glimpsed among the trees ahead of them in the gold of the afternoon. The leaves were beginning to turn faint brown and russet: autumn was drawing in, he realized, here where seasons passed and changed and time did not seem to stand still. It would be almost winter by the time they reached Ith. A good season to begin himself anew, when the wind scoured the world clean to begin itself again. He had not liked the unchanging nature of Sorlost.
And then winter … Thalia had never seen winter. He would take her out in a sleigh, racing across the snow wrapped in thick furs. Riding fast over the frost and hearing it crunch underfoot. Skating on the ice of a frozen field. The great feast of Sunreturn, which she did not even know by its right name, when one feasted and danced for a day and a night and day to welcome back the light.
There’d been a very heavy cold three winters back, so long and hard even the great river Emdell had frozen thick enough to stand on and they’d held the feast there on the ice, skating in the dark with the moon making the ice shine, all the ladies of the court whirling around him in fur cloaks, showing only their eyes. He and Carin had ridden upriver together that night; it had snowed again and they had been briefly, utterly alone, the two of them lost in a world of pure and silent white.
He hadn’t thought about Carin for days now, he realized. It shocked him. But the memories were fainter in his mind. So quickly, now … Only a few months it had been. He wondered for a moment which of them he would choose, if somehow he could have a choice.
Then she called out to him, pointing out a hawk hovering utterly still save the wild beating of its wings, a dragon in miniature, dropping down like a thunderbolt, and he did not think of these things.
They stopped early the next afternoon, by a thick stream of sweet water, almost a river. It was banked with willow trees. Fish swam in the shallow water, glistening over smooth pebbles. Tobias tried to catch them but gave up, then Rate somehow got one, fat and brown with rainbow shadows. There was a smell of thyme and wild garlic from the green banks. A good place.
Thalia went off alone to the water. She still found the sight of running water a marvel: Marith liked to watch her, gazing enchanted into the swirling eddies, feeling the play of the current on her hands or feet. But this evening he left her alone to her thoughts and stretched out on the scrubby grass beneath one of the willows, staring up into its leaves as the evening drew in. Rate and Tobias were arguing over how to cook the fish; he half-listened to their voices, thinking vaguely of his own woods and rivers, riding through them fast on a chestnut horse, taking Thalia walking in green hills, laying her down on moss and leaf litter that would tangle in her hair …
A shadow. Tobias was standing over him. Marith sat up and Tobias squatted beside him.
‘Didn’t wake you, did I?’ Tobias said gruffly.
‘Just daydreaming. It’s good here.’
‘Is it?’ Tobias looked around him. A smile crossed his face. ‘It is, at that, isn’t it? You forget, just looking at places for their strategic value. Simple pleasure in simple things. You look well, boy. Lord Prince. The girl suits you. Didn’t think you had it in you, to be honest with you.’
Marith looked at him curiously. ‘Thank you. I think.’
‘Happy, then, are you? Content?’
‘I … Yes.’ He hadn’t even thought it in those terms. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s good then, I suppose. Shame it took so many people dying. But probably good, yes?’
‘Yes …’ Content. He hadn’t felt content for a long time. There was a sudden waft of sweet, pungent smoke as Rate started cooking the fish. A bird called loudly in the tree above him. Content. Yes. He was content. Happy, even.
Tobias held out his hand. ‘So I suppose you won’t be wanting this, then?’
A small clay vial, its neck sealed with wax.
Oh gods. O
h gods. No. Oh, please, no.
‘That’s … That’s …’
‘Interesting, the things you can pick up once you know what to look for, when everyone else is busy running around getting supplies fit for a prince.’ Tobias tried to smile at him. Eyes shifted guiltily away. Had the decency to look ashamed.
Oh gods.
Please. Please. Please.
Help me.
I don’t need it, Marith tried to think. Not now. These last few days … Like he’d been through all the fires of a forge and been remade, burned away and scalded clean. She knows me, he thought, she knows me and she is still so bright with light, she’s known darkness and death as I have and she is so radiant and so alive. I could be like that, he thought. I could just … just be alive. Happy. Content.
Tobias was frowning at him. Trying to look hard and strong. ‘You killed Emit for stuff like this not that long ago. Come on, then. Here it is.’
‘Why?’ His whole body trembling. Help me help me help me. ‘We’re going to Ith and you’ll be rewarded … I told you … Why?’
‘‘‘Why”’ what? Maybe I just saw it and thought of you … A reward, like. For seeing off the dragon and that. Saving us all from burning. Killing a baby. Killing Emit. Killing all those men and women and children you killed.’ Tobias spat in the dust. ‘A reward.’
I can’t … I don’t need it … I promised her I’d help her. She was kind to me.
Blot it out, he thought. Make it all go away.
But I don’t … I don’t …
‘Don’t worry about the girl,’ said Tobias. ‘She’s better off with me and Rate. I’ve seen you, boy, remember. Seen what you do to people. Seen what you are. She’s too good for you.’
‘No … No …’ Marith bowed his head. ‘Please …’ Don’t say it. Don’t say it. I know she is. She’s radiant with light and I … I know what I am. But I can hope. Pretend. ‘Don’t say it. Please.’
‘It’s good stuff, the bloke selling it told me.’ Tobias’s voice lowered. ‘Your face, when you were killing people … I saw you, boy. Filth. Murderer. Monster. Demon. Disease. That’s what you are. You terrify me. I can’t let you go to Ith, boy. You know that. Can’t let you have power and command. I know what you are. What you’d do. Think of this as a kindness, like. ’Cause it is. To you and her and us.’
The Court of Broken Knives Page 31
