by Anne Perry
“Have you somewhere to stay?” The upward lift of her voice made it an invitation. “My brother and I have a house, in the Tower of the Vines.”
“Thank you.” With an easy movement, he jumped down lightly into the boat. He did not take the oar from her but sat and watched as she turned the boat back the way they had come. Whatever the original purpose of her trip had been, it was clearly no longer important. Neither spoke to Tathea. Several times she opened her mouth to say something, but Ellida was busy guiding the boat, and Ishrafeli did not take his eyes from her. By the time they stepped ashore and began climbing the long flight of steps upward and round the tower, Tathea felt as if any notice they took of her was a courtesy, empty of meaning.
She was numb with desolation. She was alone here in this beautiful and violent city, bereft of everything familiar, everything precious and sweet from the past, certain of only one thing in all the shifting patterns of doubt—Ishrafeli was at the core and heart of everything she loved. And even as she reached the studded door, he had already gone inside with Ellida and she was left outside, forgotten.
It would pass. It must. They had barely met! They had not shared the death of Allomir, the desolation of Parfyrion’s loveliness and hope, the terrible, destructive power of the sea in Bal-Eeya, Malgard’s sterile innocence, and Salymbrion’s towering decision, the Land of the Great White Bear with its fellowship of courage beyond hope, all the passion and the tenderness and terror of this whole journey of the heart ...
And yet when she pushed the door and went inside, they were standing together, shoulders almost touching, and she felt like an intruder. It was the most terrible pain she had felt in her life, consuming everything else.
Pandolf and Radamistus were there also, sitting at a table, talking. They were discussing some miscarriage of justice by the eleven Oligarchs, a rivalry, a doomed love, and a murder.
Ellida joined the debate. “She can’t have known!” she said with fierce denial, her voice raw with pity.
“Of course not,” Pandolf agreed. “It was Tallagisto again. He used her and betrayed her, as he does everyone sooner or later. It would amuse him to do it that way. The irony would suit his humor.”
“And they are both dead?” Radamistus asked.
“They are all three dead now,” Pandolf answered. “And Orlando is injured and will die. The only thing to be savored from it all is that Tallagisto’s man Skibus is wounded too, badly enough to die also.”
Ellida turned away, her face pinched with regret. “I wish I could have reached Orlando. I might have saved him.”
Ishrafeli looked at her quickly, his eyes wide.
She answered him as if he had spoken. “I have the gift of healing.” She did not explain any further, expecting him to understand.
He smiled slowly, his eyes full of gentleness. “That is a great gift ...” He hesitated, tenderness about his lips. “It comes with a heavy price.”
“I know,” she answered steadily, and Tathea remembered the overheard conversation with Radamistus the night before, his anger and her words of forgiveness. She was beautiful, wise, brave, and generous. She fought for justice, and yet she would forgive even betrayal. Tathea knew it; she could see it in her as plainly as the clean light on the water, and it pressed on her heart like a stone lid.
“No, you don’t,” Ishrafeli said so softly his voice was no more than a whisper. “All you have paid so far is little compared with what you will give in time.”
She stared back at him in silence, not daring to speak.
He slid his hand over hers for a moment, then withdrew it.
The conversation resumed. They spoke softly. Their trust was absolute. It had to be. One whisper to the secret police and they would disappear into the prisons of the Oligarchs and reappear only in the shifting tide, face down.
The day was the most wretched Tathea had ever endured. It was worse even than being lost in the ice because her heart and soul were cold. They went out in the boat again, Tathea in the center, Ishrafeli and Ellida in the stern, their hands touching as they drifted on the water. He met her eyes and understood what was not spoken. He laughed easily, and at the same things she did. At sunset they stood on the tower steps and stared at the dying fire over the western sky. They seldom seemed to speak, as if their thoughts were so perfectly attuned they were beyond commonplace words.
Watching them, with the soft light in their faces, Tathea would have given up every journey of the soul, every truth or glory at the end to be back on the shores of the Lost Lands and not to have found the sage or asked him for knowledge. If the end of all the passion and the cost, the courage and the hope, did not include Ishrafeli, then it could be no more than a sham, a second best, shot through with loss.
On the third day, a little after noon, Tathea was alone in the tower when she heard a sharp rap on the door. She opened it without interest. There could be nothing that mattered.
Outside stood two men in sumptuous clothes, with slashed and embroidered sleeves, soft velvet hats and doublets laced with ribbon. They both carried daggers and their hands rested idly on the jeweled hilts. There was a narrowness in their eyes and a certain tension in their bodies, as if they were ready to move quickly. She could sense power in them, smell it as though it was an odor in the air, like sweat.
“Yes?” she said quietly.
The taller of the two adjusted his weight and smiled at her through misshapen teeth. “Is this your home?”
She was about to deny it and explain that she was merely a guest when the whole answer was there in her mind as plainly as if she had understood it from the moment she entered the lagoon of Sardonaris, even before she met Ellida or heard of the Oligarchs.
“Yes.” In a word she committed herself irrevocably.
One of them pushed past her, flinging the door wide, but the other remained behind, cutting off all possible escape. Not that that was what she thought of. There was now only one acceptable path, and every move must be made correctly or it would all be in vain.
With trembling legs and dry throat she followed him into the room and went to stand by the table on which stood a bowl of fruit and jugs of wine.
Both men stared at her, eyes bright, lips curled in the faintest of sneers.
“Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know,” she said defiantly. There was no need to pretend the fear; it was real enough in her clammy hands and lurching heart.
“Never mind,” the taller replied. “It is you we want.” His face showed weariness rather than pleasure. He was bored with tortures. He had seen too much, and time was short. He stepped towards her.
She must move now or it would be too late and there would be no warning for the others. She swiveled round and swept her arm across the table, knocking the bowl of fruit over and smashing the dish. She grasped the largest wine jug and flung it at the man, soaking him, splattering wine on the floor. One of the velvet curtains was stained.
The man swore at her and grasped her viciously, wrenching her arm. Pain shot through her, but what did it matter now? Nothing they could do would hide the signs of a struggle or make the room as it had been.
Sullenly, trying not to show her eagerness to be gone, she submitted to them. They must not be here when the others returned or the whole purpose would be lost.
Held tightly by both arms, a dagger pricking her side, she was led down the winding steps to the landing stage. A long, black vessel was waiting, with a third man at the oar. It was not an open boat like Ellida’s, but covered by a heavy, dark awning. No passer-by would see her, or hear her cry out.
She sat silently as they moved out onto the water. When the others came home they would see the wreckage and realize what had happened. The secret police would not know they had the wrong person. Perhaps the plan to overthrow the Oligarchs would succeed. Far more than that, Ishrafeli would have what he longed for: Ellida, safe. If the secret police had taken her, there would be no happiness for any of them. This way was b
etter. She had wanted to give him her own love, her life, her laughter, her hope, and her pain, but he had not wanted it. The one thing she could give him was Ellida. At least he would love her for that.
The boat stopped and she was led out. They were in a narrow canal with walls on either side rising sheer from the water. A staircase led up to a crested iron door which opened from the inside as they approached it and clanged shut with a dead finality after them.
She was taken along bare passages, past windows of fretted stone which overlooked the water, bright patterns from its movement rippling across the ceiling. They went down shallow, broad steps, this time carpeted, until at last they came into a great room hung with red and gold tapestries. At the far end behind a table sat a withered man in a tall, crimson hat, his heavy-lidded eyes deeply sunken. He was Tallagisto, the eleventh, the hungriest, and the cleverest of the Oligarchs.
“The woman Ellida,” her escort announced. “She was alone there.”
“Pity,” Tallagisto said dryly. “But she will do.” He looked at her with interest. “She is not as beautiful as I had heard—or as young.” His lip twisted slightly. “But fiercer! Your pride will earn you nothing here, mistress.” He looked beyond her at the men. “Enough. You can go.”
She heard them step back, but if the door closed, it did so silently. She met Tallagisto’s clouded, stonelike eyes without flinching. He could hurt her, perhaps terribly, but in the end all he could take was her life. He could not take her purpose.
“As I said, proud,” Tallagisto murmured. “Your brother said you had courage, but he did not speak of the fire in you, or the strength.” His voice sank in tired contempt. “He is a fool.”
She looked at him with a sick realization. It was Radamistus who had betrayed them—again. She saw the age-old hate in Tallagisto’s eyes, the same bottomless hunger she had seen in Cassiodorus, and Dulcina, and Ikthari. The recognition was like a terrible nausea. Perhaps this was the last confrontation.
“You are right,” she agreed. “He is as great a fool as a man can be. He has betrayed not only me, but infinitely more than that, himself—what he has become and what he might have been.”
The old Oligarch gave a crooked, wizened grimace. He had a high, domed forehead and a nose like a great bird’s beak.
“A philosopher as well as a fighter and a healer! Well, I have a task for you. It is the price of your life. One of my friends, Skibus, is mortally injured. Heal him, and you may live too. Fail, and I shall kill you.” His lips curved back. “Not necessarily quickly.”
It would be brave to refuse him. The name of Skibus had been mentioned. He was a bully and a torturer. Should anyone, even in the name of mercy, heal such a man so that he might kill and maim again? She had no choice. Her Shinabari arts were good, but no more than human. She had not Ellida’s gift, which was of God.
She lifted her face and forced herself to meet the old man’s eyes. “No.” Her lips were dry and the word scarcely audible.
Tallagisto leaned forward in his scarlet chair and struck his hand across the side of her face, his ring gashing her cheek. The power in him was startling. She was sent reeling backwards, falling heavily, wrenching her ankle. Pain throbbed through her. He leaned forward and she could feel his breath on her face.
He struck her again. This time she remained on the floor, the taste of blood in her mouth.
“Heal Skibus for me and I shall reward you richly, Ellida.” His voice was whisper-soft and cold as the grave. “You will be safe. I shall give you your brother’s life to do with as you will. You shall have wealth and honor if you want them. Refuse me, and you shall have nothing, not even a martyr’s death.”
She did not doubt that he meant it.
“No ...” The word was a sigh, her mouth too sore to speak clearly.
Tallagisto rang a tiny gold bell beside him. The door opened.
“Take her,” he ordered. “Kill her. Slowly.”
She was half carried, half dragged out of the great red room, along a different passageway and down into a bare cell.
Another figure was waiting for her there, lean and sparse, dressed entirely in black from the hooded mask over his head to the ridiculous, curl-toed shoes with tiny silver bells on them.
“She’s mine now,” he said softly to the guards. “Go your ways.”
She heard a sniggering laugh and the door closing.
She faced the man in black, terror tightening her throat until she could barely breathe. She prayed that in spite of Tallagisto’s orders he would do it quickly, while her courage lasted. There was nothing left now but to die.
He bent forward, crouching on the floor. There was a faint noise. He pulled up a trap door. Panic filled her as if this were the mouth of hell. An eternity of horror engulfed her. Very slowly she looked. A flight of stone steps led down to the faint glitter of water.
“Hurry!” he whispered in her ear. “They will return, and they must not see you alive!”
She was dazed with incomprehension.
“Hurry!” he repeated, taking her arm. “Down the stairs to the boat. The tide will take you. Go!”
“Thank you!” The words were swallowed in the darkness as she fumbled her way down, dizzy with bruising, the taste of blood still in her mouth.
Chapter VII
THE BOAT CARRIED HER slowly at first, through glimmering darkness broken only occasionally by the light from latticed windows as she passed other passages, other dungeons. She lost all count of time. She ignored the blood running down her cheek. It was of no importance. She was under the city, and if she was on the current of the tide, she must be going out towards the sea, at least until it turned.
Why had she been released? Who was the man in black? One of the resistance? Had he also assumed she was Ellida? Could she now find a ship and escape Sardonaris altogether?
What was the truth she had come for? Sacrifice? That everything had a terrible price and in the end she was alone?
She fell asleep, still being carried outward between gray walls through tunnels echoing with the lap of water and the endless drip of water onto stone. She woke to see the blue of the sky arching far above her, touched with the breath of evening. A seabird wheeled and caught an eddy of air, soaring upward, wings gleaming, then careened down the long expanse of the wind.
Very slowly she moved. There was no pain, no bruising where she had been struck. She put her hand up to her face, expecting to feel blood and raw skin, but her fingers met a smooth cheek that was not even slightly tender.
She was in the center of the lagoon. She sat up and looked around. Behind her Sardonaris lay gold above the turquoise of the harbor, its warm stones crumbling gently, the sun apricot on the west-facing walls. She stared ahead where the current was taking her. The bright sheet of the water was pellucid, charged with shadows, and above it rose the pale marble pillars of the island palace.
She was moving more swiftly now. The evening air was cool on her skin and sweeter than anything she had known. There was no sound but the faint whisper of movement.
At last the skiff bumped against the stone and she climbed out, tying the bow rope to a bollard. She went up the shallow steps until she was at the threshold of a long, pillared gallery stretching westward towards the fading light. A small black and white cat with a pointed nose and jewel eyes curved itself gracefully round the base of a column, then stopped and stared at her.
Ahead was a door at least twice the height of a man, with scenes of passion, hope, courage, and pity wrought on its panels. She walked over to it. It was ajar, and she pushed it wide enough to slip through.
The room inside was hung with tapestries. Ahead was another double door, this time of cedar, polished and hinged with brass. It too was ajar. She stood against it, listening. There was utter silence. She looked around it into a hall so vast its far end was beyond sight. It was thronged with people, legion in number, wordless, motionless. They were all facing towards an open space to the front, and there was an urgency in
them, a straining of such intense eagerness it was like a charge in the air, a tingle creeping over the skin and making the hair prickle.
Tathea held her breath, her heart pounding. She followed their gaze to the high, recessed seat on which sat a man whose face shone with such beauty its radiance dazzled her and she looked away, but the glory of it remained within her like a peace never to be forgotten.
There was a movement in the throng, a heightening of emotion, an eternity of expectancy at last come to fulfillment. A man stepped forward from among the crowd, the light gleaming on his smooth, brown hair and catching the fine lines of his face, marked with the essence of all reason and excellence of mind.
“Man of Holiness,” he addressed the figure seated in the great chair. He spoke clearly, calmly, but to Tathea it was as if he stood beside her, even though he was at least fifty spans away.
“Speak, Savixor.” The answer was only two words, yet the sound of it was like a whisper of heaven in the soul.
“We have asked what the plan for mankind shall be,” he began confidently. “What manner of mortal life shall he have that he may take flesh upon him, that his spirit and body may be united for a space that shall be as a probation for him before he is resurrected for eternity? We have asked what the nature of his world shall be, what his destiny. I have thought well ...”
There was a faint sigh, the outgoing of a myriad breaths.
Savixor raised his hands a little, as if to display some invisible thing that rested in them. “His world should be as the worlds we already know, made of the same elements. There will be heat and cold, ocean and dry land, rocks, trees, herbs of the field, and beasts and fishes and birds ...”
There was a rustle of impatience from the assembly and another figure stepped forward, pale-haired, with ice-blue eyes and a fierce countenance.
“This much we already assumed!” he said angrily.
“Silence!” Savixor’s reproof was terrible. He did not raise his voice, but it boomed around the hall like the backwash of the sea after a great wave has broken. “I have been given leave to speak! Who are you that you dare to interrupt?”
