by Kearney Paul
‘You are princes of the empire, sons of the Great King, not brawlers in some hut in the Magron. Bel’s blood, do you think you can behave so in front of me? Is this how kings are made? I have seen traitors go to the spike who show more respect to the diadem than you. Get out of my sight – and do not speak a word to one another as you go. I will deal with you – both of you – later. Now go!’
Kouros glared at his father, and in that instant, Ashurnan saw the older man within him; the heavy jowls, the down-turned lines about the petulant mouth. Then he strode off, feet pounding into the ground as if each step set his seal upon it.
Rakhsar lingered a few seconds more. His face was one perpetual sneer – what would it take to wipe it off? Then he bowed to his father and sauntered away into the trees.
‘Perhaps they will finish their argument out in the dark,’ Merach said, and then coloured. ‘Forgive me, lord.’
‘That is not their style, either of them,’ Ashurnan said. He waved a hand impatiently at Merach’s two mute, horrified companions, who were standing forgotten on the edge of the light. ‘Go – leave us.’ Then he rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the black circling flies.
‘More wine, Merach – pour it for us both.’
When they were drinking again, Ashurnan said; ‘Kouros is a coward, for all his size. He has a good head, but he is thin-skinned as an ugly girl, and his mother’s venom has curdled something in him. Rakhsar, he is all scheming and planning, but all to his own back. He thinks nothing of larger things. These, Merach, are my sons. The ones whose voices have broken, at any rate.’
‘They are your sons: they are not King. Lord, there is yet time for one of your other children to grow into a man.’
Ashurnan tilted his head to one side and smiled crookedly. ‘One reason I have always trusted you, old friend, is that you have all your life retained the simplicity of the soldier. And if truth were told, I kept you from this city so that it would remain that way. You know nothing of the workings of the Court and the Harem. These young boys who ran about under the trees this evening – they will all die before they become men.’
Merach bared his teeth a second in a spasm of anger. ‘I should speak no more.’
‘You may say what you like – it is why Darios sent you.’
Lord, forgive me.’ He looked down into his cup. ‘Is it the Queen?’
‘Who else?’ Ashurnan smiled again. ‘A marvellous woman, Orsana. She would have made a fine ruler of this empire in her own right, but she must work through her son, who is an inferior instrument.
‘She will tolerate no other. It is something I have become almost reconciled to, Merach. I have shielded Rakhsar this long because I thought there was promise in him, but I know now I cannot gainsay my wife. Kouros will succeed me, if this phoenix from the west leaves him anything to rule. And Orsana will control the empire at last. It may actually be for the best. She is a poisonous bitch, but she is as able as I am, and lacks my streak of absurd sentimentality.’
‘I call it honour,’ Merach said, and the anger was still smouldering in his eyes.
‘Kings cannot afford a sense of honour, my friend.’
‘Then they are not worthy of the name. Lord, this enemy of ours out in the west, this young man who calls himself Corvus; he –’ Merach hesitated a second. ‘He took in the wounded we left behind us in our flight, and he had his surgeons treat them as though they were his own. He has not ravaged the land as an invading army ought, and his men are under savage discipline.’
‘Ah,’ Ashurnan said. ‘The Macht. They are something to see, in battle, are they not?’
‘They are like some great machine. He has drilled them to perfection, foot and horse alike. They are clad all in scarlet, as their mercenaries once were at Kunaksa. This boy is something remarkable, my lord. In seven years he has taken almost two hundred feuding city-states and made of them a nation.’
‘Indeed. I wonder what his plans for us are.’ Ashurnan emptied his cup and tossed it out of the lamplight, the gesture a flicker of fury. When he turned back to his friend, his eyes glowed like those of a wolf caught in firelight.
‘This empire will endure, Merach. It has stood for so many centuries that men have stopped counting them.
‘It is civilization.
‘The Macht are barbarians, a race which does not belong to this world, an aberration of nature. They will be defeated by me and mine as the founder of my line defeated them in the ancient days. The empire cannot fall. If it does, it will topple us all into a dark age the likes of which history has never seen before.
‘I will take the field – the preparations have already begun. You may begin your journey back to Darios in the morning. Tell him the Great King is coming, and with him shall march the full army of the empire. He will see us at the end of this summer. Until then he must hold at Ashdod. He must hold the passes of the Korash Mountains for me, no matter what the cost.’
Merach nodded, eyes shining.
‘And Merach–’ Ashurnan rose to his feet, a majestic figure, golden-skinned, the diadem a black line across his forehead. ‘I do not care how this invader behaves, or how gently he treats our people. The Macht must be allowed no quarter. We will take no prisoners and show them no mercy. You must make Darios understand this. We are fighting a different kind of war from those we have known before.’ Ashurnan drew his lips back from his teeth as he spoke, like an animal snarling at its enemy.
‘It is no longer enough to defeat them. The Macht must be exterminated.’
FOUR
BROKEN NIGHTINGALES
THERE WAS A comfort in the coolness of the stone. Kurun pressed himself into the corner of the cell farthest from the door, curled up like a woodlouse. The floor was sheened with condensation, for it was colder than the air. Kurun wiped his palm across it and tried to use the accumulated moisture to wash himself, to wipe the filth away, but the blood, and other matter, was a caking, slimed mess from his buttocks to his knees. He gave up, pressed his forehead to the kindly stone, and emptied his mind. There was nothing more to think of. If he lived or died it meant nothing now, to himself or to anyone else.
A rattle in the lock brought him upright in a spasm of terror all the same. His feet scrabbled on the floor as he tried to push himself farther into the corner of the cell. Now the stone was his enemy, unyielding, spurning his flesh.
The door swung open, lamplight blinding him. He held up a hand like a man staring into the sun.
‘Can you walk?’
He nodded, crawled up the wall, his fingers hunting for gaps in the blocks. Then his legs left him, and he hit the floor with a slap.
‘Bel’s blood. Banon, you made this mess; go pick it up. We don’t have all night – I’m expected back at the gardens.’
A bulk that blocked out the light. A familiar smell. Kurun came alive, punching and scratching like a frightened cat.
‘Be still, you little bitch.’ A massive fist clouted him on the side of the head, sending lights shooting through his mind, filling his ears with a high-pitched hiss. He was picked up and tucked under one arm by the tall Honai.
‘Bring him – and make sure you clean out that cell after. This is not the undercity.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Kurun was carried into torchlight, head down, like a rabbit brought home for the pot. He saw sandaled feet tramping, wisps of straw on stone. He retched, but there was nothing left to come up. He clenched his eyes shut, wondering what death would be like. It could not be worse than what they had done to him already.
‘Strap him in, and then get back to your post. And Banon, clean yourself up, for pity’s sake. He’s slobbered all over you.’
‘It was worth it, chief.’
Kurun was in some kind of chair. His wrists were buckled to the arms with leather straps. Then his legs were pulled apart. He tried to fight, but the pain was too much. He was strapped at the ankles and knees, his thighs held apart. He opened his swollen eyes.
A small, wind
owless room, much like the cell he had left. A tall, magnificently dressed Kefre watched him. He knew the face, but the smothering panic blotted out anything else. Sandalwood perhaps, the fragrance dim as a broken spark outside his heart’s thunder.
There was a table by the far wall, and an old hufsan was busy at it, spitting on a stone. Then Kurun heard the steady rhythmic scrape of a knife being sharpened, the rasp of steel on stone which was intimate to him after all his years in the kitchens.
‘Lord, no, please. Kill me if you want. But not that.’ The tears fell from his eyes in silver ribbons.
The Honai said nothing. He seemed preoccupied. He was reading a scrap of parchment. He grunted.
‘Your friend Auroc has disowned you, boy. Says you are quite the little troublemaker.’
‘Auroc? No – Lord, no. I beg you.’
For the first time the Honai’s bright, violet eyes met his own. ‘You have spirit, slave. For a kitchen scullion to spy upon the Great King and his family! I hope you were well paid.’
‘No-one paid me. I was stupid. I did not think.’
‘Maybe.’
The door opened. In came a massive, black-haired Kefre with a heavy face. His eyes were dark with anger. At once, the Honai went to one knee, then straightened. Deference sat deep-planted on the Honai’s countenance. And fear.
‘My Lord Kouros. This is the boy.’
The dark Kefre loomed over Kurun, ignoring the greeting. ‘Did you get anything out of him?’
‘Nothing of use. He holds to his story.’ A pause. ‘My prince, I think it may be the truth.’
‘I am not a spy!’ Kurun screamed.
Kouros knelt until his face was level with Kurun’s. He held out a hand. Without a word, the elderly hufsan in the corner came forward and set the knife within it. Kouros felt the edge, his gaze never leaving Kurun’s face.
‘Was it my brother?’ he asked, softly. ‘Was it Prince Rakhsar?’
Kurun’s vision was broken into a spangled mosaic of tears. ‘Lord, I am a kitchen slave,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘I am nothing.’
The violet eyes studied him. The Kefren prince exuded anger, like perfume made rank by sweat. The hand which held the knife trembled slightly. There was a smell of burning in the room. The hufsan at the table had uncovered a clay firepot and was blowing the coals within into life.
At last Kouros seemed to relax somewhat. He breathed out.
‘I believe you’re right. The boy is telling the truth,’ he said. ‘I can see it in him.’
The Honai nodded. ‘Youth makes for foolishness. What shall I do with him, my prince?’
Kurun was sobbing with relief, sagging in the leather bonds that imprisoned his limbs. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you, lord.’
Then Kouros leaned close, a flash of movement startlingly swift in so bulky a form. He grasped at Kurun’s soft flesh, and the knife sawed a second, then slid cleanly through. A jet of blood, black and shining, spattered Kouros’s face. Kurun shrieked.
At once the hufsan scuttled forward, holding a skewer of iron whose tip glowed yellow. He thrust it between Kurun’s legs and worked the point back and forth, as though he were smearing plaster into a crevice. A sickening smoke rose. Kurun screamed and strained in the chair until the straps were bloody and the sinews in his neck stood out like wires.
Kouros studied his handiwork. The Honai handed him a linen towel and he wiped his face.
‘He’s a pretty one, all right. Just the sort Rakhsar would like.’ Then he smiled, and set a hand on the Honai’s breastplate. ‘No – the lady Roshana. Have him sent to her. Let her know the whole way of it. She has a heart of corn, a soft spot for waifs and strays. This will let her know what I do to her brother’s spies.’
‘Even when they are not spies at all. A capital notion, sir,’ Dyarnes said, face impassive.
The grin on Kouros’s face sat uneasily. It did not seem to suit his features. ‘A clean cut, Dyarnes?’
‘Very clean, my Lord. I could not have done better.’
‘The Great King’s son must never shrink from using the knife when he deems it necessary. I never shall. Have him sent to my half-sister’s apartments just as he is.’
‘Yes lord. It shall be done tonight.’
The uneasy, un-right smile was still on Kouros’s face as he left. Dyarnes stood looking down on Kurun a moment more.
‘Give him something for the pain,’ he said to the hufsan in the corner, his golden face twisted with disgust. And then he swept out of the room without a backward glance.
‘So, you joined a Royal dinner without invitation,’ the old hufsan chuckled. He bent and picked up the bloody piece of meat from the floor and waved it in front of Kurun’s pain-glazed eyes. ‘These are bigger than most, my young friend. Say goodbye to them now. Your life is starting over again tonight. You were very lucky.’
‘Lucky.’ Kurun slurred the word. He had bitten through his own tongue, and his mouth was full of blood.
The hufsan was a bent, brown creature in a dun robe the same colour as his skin, His eyes were bright as a bird’s, and he had the long fingers of a musician, or a scholar.
‘Rinse your mouth out.’ A bowl was placed at Kurun’s mouth. ‘Good. Now spit – over your shoulder.’
The bloody liquid dribbled from Kurun’s mouth. The old hufsan wiped it away with the cloth Kouros had discarded.
‘You are no spy of Rakhsar. I could have told him that.’ He took a mortar from the table and scooped out the contents with one hand. Then he knelt between Kurun’s legs and began gently smearing it over the seared gash there. Kurun came to life again, struggled in the chair, moaned thickly.
‘Hold still. If it’s done right now, you’ll still look pretty down there, and you may even have a cock that works. This was done to you later in life than usual, so you may keep something of your manhood about you. You’ll never need to shave, though.’
He put the mortar away, wiped his hands, humming like a man content with his work, and produced a vial of amber-yellow liquid. He put it to Kurun’s bloody mouth. ‘Don’t waste a drop. This is juice of the poppy, and you’re lucky to get it. I think Dyarnes liked you. And the prince knew it, or he’d have gutted you for the fun of it. Believe me, I’ve seen it. But the black bastard still has some shame about him. He knows a needless killing would get back to his father. Dyarnes still serves two masters.
‘There. Good boy. In a moment or two you’ll feel the pain go, and all the worries of your little life. I’ll unbuckle you then.’ He stroked the boy’s thick black hair.
‘You are alive, and young, my friend. This shall pass, as all things do. It is not the end. Believe me, I know.’
‘Who?’ Kurun gargled.
‘My name is Hiram. I’m from the Harem.’ He giggled. ‘Hiram of the Harem, that’s me. They dragged me out of my bed to make sure you wouldn’t bleed to death. Yours aren’t the first balls I’ve picked up off the floor, believe me.’
‘Kurun shook his head, stared at the door. ‘Who –’ he repeated.
‘Ah, I see. Well, you have been mixing in elevated company this night, kitchen-boy. The tall Honai was Dyarnes, master of the King’s Bodyguard. And the black-haired, grinning monster who sliced your manhood off was no less than prince Kouros himself, whom most think will one day sit in his father’s chair and rule the empire. He thought you a minion of his brother’s. Or perhaps he didn’t. It hardly matters.’ Hiram grinned, showing yellow teeth as uneven as the gaps in a broken fence.
Kurun sagged in the chair. His eyes dulled. ‘Death,’ he said, a long whisper that tapered into a sob.
Hiram stroked his hair again. ‘Not death, little one. Not tonight. Kouros tried too hard to be cruel. Roshana will see that you are well treated. She has her mother in her. And this will not be the first time Kouros has left something broken at her door. I remember, when they were children, he once strangled her favourite nightingale and set it on her pillow.’ Hiram’s face grew grim, the fine-wrinkled skin tight
ening about his mouth.
Kurun was sleeping now, breathing deep, his head sunk on his chest. Hiram began to unbuckle him from the chair.
‘From the kitchen to the Court. You are going up in the world, boy. One day you may even think the price was worth paying.’ His face twisted, something like self-mockery flitting across it.
‘One day.’
ACROSS THE ZIGGURATS of the city the sunrise poured down, catching the golden plated Fane of Bel and setting it alight in a gleam of yellow flame. Those in the teeming streets below looked up at the sight and touched their foreheads in salute to the sun, to Bel the life-giver.
The world had been given another morning.
Along the Huruma the priests went in procession with their long-handled snuffers, putting out the street-torches and welcoming the dawn with ancient sonorous songs whose words they no longer understood, but whose melodies were woven into the very fabric of Ashur itself.
The traffic was already moving in long lines through every gate in the fabled walls, and in the irrigated fields beyond, farmers walked waist-deep in the last of the night’s mist. The air about them was alive with the croaking of frogs and the white egrets rose like flocks of ghosts from the palm trees.
Even at this early hour, there was a promise of heat behind the moist cool of the air, and shimmers of insects rose out of the damp ground to hang in clouds overhead. Summer was growing, and the season was turning towards the white blinding days of heat and dust that marked the zenith of the year.
Summer was growing, and the snows in the mountains were retreating up into the peaks, widening the passes. The good grass was thickening underfoot and the soil was hardening. This was the beginning of true campaigning weather.
It was the time for the fighting of wars.
FIVE
FLIGHT OF PRINCES
THE LADY ORSANA rose well before dawn, even now that the mornings came earlier. She bathed in the mosaic pool with her maids all about her, and picked out what to wear from a procession of living models, who stood in front of the fragrant steaming water one by one. A fingertip lifted slightly, and Charys, the Queen’s Eunuch, clapped his white hands to confirm the choice.
