Come Armageddon

by Anne Perry

  “Balour isn’t the real enemy, he’s only a tool,” she said thoughtfully. “He’s being prompted by someone else, far cleverer than he is.”

  “Who?” he asked. “Asmodeus?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Ulciber?”

  “I expect so.” She shivered a little. “It has the sweet rot of corruption deeper than Balour knows. I can feel a subtler touch to it, far stronger.”

  He held her tighter. “We can still win. I have a thousand men and women in Severinus’ chain right now, helping where they can—a word, an act, a secret gift. It’s spreading. Sometimes it’s no more than a hope where there was none before, but after a kindness is returned, a small change is made. When a merchant is robbed in the street, and it’s a beggar who picks him up and takes him in, a blind man who brings him food, a cripple who winds his bandages, something new awakens in him. More than one has seen an instant of eternity, and that swords win only battles, wars are of the spirit.”

  Tathea smiled.

  “A thousand I know of,” he added. “Ten thousand more beyond those that I couldn’t name. Yesterday Callia sat all day telling stories to children whose parents have been executed. She can’t see their faces and doesn’t know who they are.” He held her a little tighter. “Their parents wouldn’t have given her bread in the street when they passed by, but all she knows is their confusion and their loss. Suddenly their world is upside down, and a grubby blind woman who smells of the streets is warmth to them in the cold, a voice to speak to them in the night, patience with crying, courage when they have to get up and face the day.”

  Tathea turned round, clinging to him, burying her face in his shoulder. “That’s the victory that matters,” she said, too weary to weep but her tears thick in her voice. “When the broken and the lost can love the strangers who have not loved them, Asmodeus is losing.”

  Ishrafeli did not answer. He knew how dangerous the warping of the law was, and that she must fight it. As long as there was at least a practice of justice, there was something for men to hope for, still a banner under which to fight, a common belief.

  Ishrafeli was in the room where the old baths had been, where he had met Merkator, when Severinus came shambling in, his crooked side carried as awkwardly as always, his wasted arm held sideways. His face was ashen and tears furrowed his cheeks.

  “Callia’s dead!” he gasped before Ishrafeli could even rise to his feet from the table where he had been sitting with pen and paper. “They set on her in the street! They raped her ... and then they killed her.” He stopped, his body shaking with sobs.

  Ishrafeli went to him and held him in his arms, feeling the horror shuddering through him and the anger, the fear and the grief he had no words to name.

  His mind raced. Who had done it? Was it Balour, or mere chance? Or far more likely, was it Ulciber behind him, whispering, prompting? How far was the war already lost that men raped a blind woman in the street, and killed her? Ought he to fight for their souls, or were they already beyond recall?

  All he could feel was Severinus’ pain and his own.

  “Where is she?” he said at last when Severinus stopped shaking and stood up alone, his face streaked and smeared, his eyes red.

  “In the poorhouse for the dead,” Severinus answered.

  “Then we shall bury her in the Field of Cypresses,” Ishrafeli said, “tomorrow.”

  “That costs money.” Severinus was sceptical. “It’s a place for the rich.”

  “She’d like it,” Ishrafeli argued.

  Severinus smiled, but his eyes brimmed with tears. “She’d like it a lot,” he agreed with a violent sniff. “She never saw a cypress, but she liked the smell of them in the sun. Do we know anyone with money?”

  “Oh, I think so,” Ishrafeli answered. Already ideas were forming in his mind. “Perhaps not tomorrow, but the day after. It will give us time to make arrangements, get the necessary money.”

  Severinus’ face shadowed. “How are you going to do that? You may have to sell something. She wouldn’t want that. She’d rather be buried in one of the mine shafts like those that are executed, than you give up your things for a place. So would I!”

  “I’m not going to sell anything.” Suddenly Ishrafeli found his own throat aching. Callia’s blind, dirty face was exquisitely sharp in his mind, and the softness in it when she recognised his step. “Other people are going to pay for it. The Archon’s wife who made a fool of herself in the square, and Callia helped her dress herself properly and leave. The prostitute she nursed when she was beaten by drunks. The merchant whose father she sat with when he died. There are dozens. It doesn’t matter how much or how little, pennies will do. We’ll get enough.”

  Severinus was grinning now, showing all his broken teeth. “She’d like that! I reckon she’d like that a lot!”

  Ishrafeli was fearless in asking all those he knew Callia had helped in any way, telling them all he knew of what had happened to her, and where he intended to have her buried.

  The Prefect of Police knocked on his door that evening, and the moment it was opened he strode in. He was a man of about fifty, burly and grey-haired. Now his face was creased with anxiety and he started to speak the moment he had acknowledged Tathea.

  “You can’t do this, sir!” he stated bluntly.

  “Do what?” Ishrafeli asked with slightly exaggerated care.

  The Prefect’s face reddened a little. His shoulders were very stiff. His hands were clenching and unclenching by his sides, although they moved no closer to his sword. “You can’t go around telling everyone that that woman was raped and murdered!”

  Ishrafeli’s eyes widened but his voice was very steady. “Wasn’t she?”

  The Prefect breathed out noisily. “Probably, from what I hear ...”

  Ishrafeli stared at him. “Are you saying that you are not enquiring into it? Are rape and murder no longer crimes here?”

  The Prefect changed his balance, rocking a little on the balls of his feet. “Of course they are, sir! But we have no real evidence, and you’re stirring up a lot of feeling. You’re making it very difficult for us!”

  “Difficult to do what?” Ishrafeli asked, very polite again.

  Tathea looked from one to the other of them, but she did not interrupt.

  “To keep the peace!” the Prefect replied, easing back onto the flat of his feet again, satisfied with the answer.

  “The peace!” Ishrafeli repeated the word. “A blind woman has been set on in the street by four men, raped by them all and then beaten to death. Is that the ‘peace’ you feel the need to keep, Prefect?”

  The Prefect’s face burned scarlet. “We work by the law, sir! We don’t go out and stir up people to anger so they execute their own vengeance. If we do that, we’ll have everyone out there deciding who’s innocent and who’s guilty of everything. It’ll be chaos.”

  “I asked for contributions to buy her a place to be buried,” Ishrafeli pointed out quietly.

  “You told them how she died!” the Prefect shouted, suddenly losing control of his temper. “You’re doing that on purpose!”

  “To achieve what?” Ishrafeli raised his eyebrows.

  “To—” the Prefect began, then stopped abruptly.

  “What?” Ishrafeli pressed. He knew what the man had been going to say.

  “To rouse up feeling,” the Prefect retreated. “You’re making it very difficult for us to keep the law. We’ll find whoever did this, and we’ll have them tried the proper way.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You leave us to do our job! Just say she’s dead. Don’t go whipping up feeling. It’s a warning, that’s all. I’m sure you don’t want panic in the streets, or people taking the law into their own hands.”

  “I want the law in your hands.” Ishrafeli looked down at the Prefect’s clenched fists. “Don’t let go of it!”

  The Prefect started to say something, then changed his mind.

  “No sir,” he said grimly instead. “You bury t
his woman tomorrow, and do it quietly. No more than a score of people. That’s official!”

  “A score?” Ishrafeli said with sarcastic innocence. “Perhaps you’d better send soldiers to keep away the rest. A lot of people may wish to pay their last dues to her. Who will you let in? The first twenty to come? What if an Archon should be late, or a Captain of the Guard?”

  The Prefect’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, his face red all the way down his neck.

  “She was a blind beggar, for God’s sake!” he exploded.

  “If no one comes, then you’ll have no trouble,” Ishrafeli pointed out with a tight smile.

  “I’ll send men!” The Prefect jabbed his finger towards Ishrafeli’s chest, but he did not touch him. “And if I hear you saying a single word about revenge, I’ll have you arrested!” It was a pointless threat and he knew it, but it gave him a pretence of power and he swivelled on his heel and marched out before it could be stripped from him.

  Scores of people did come to the Field of Cypresses in the wind and the intermittent sun, but Ishrafeli barely cared about that. Callia had loved, that she had been loved in return was a greater blessing to the living than to her now.

  What mattered was that the Prefect could no longer ignore the crime. Two days later the news was announced that four soldiers had been arrested and were to be tried for the rape and murder of the blind woman.

  None of the lawyers wanted to prosecute the case. The men accused were on brief leave from the army after having served on the battlefront against the barbarian. This was the first time they had been home to the City since leaving nearly a year ago.

  Tathea had no hesitation in taking it for herself. Ishrafeli was tireless in seeking evidence, witnesses, means of assuring or protecting those who were afraid, bullying those who placed their own comfort before the duty of testifying. He came home exhausted and sat almost motionless in his chair in case he should distract her study of how best to argue the case.

  Sometimes he brought Severinus with him, knowing the cripple needed to feel as if he were part of the fighting. There was nothing Severinus could do, but he seemed more at ease if he was with them, watching Tathea, willing her to find a way to win.

  The trial was held in the great hall of justice. Crowds of people poured up the shallow steps from the forum, filling the courtroom and packing the corridors outside.

  Balour himself presided, sitting in the high, carved judge’s seat, his rodent face peering over the bench into the room, shifting, watching, his sharp-nailed hands never still.

  He brought the proceedings to order the moment the doors were closed and, glaring at Tathea, spat out the command to begin.

  The four soldiers stood at ease in the box reserved for the accused, their bodies relaxed, their faces calm, one even half smiling, as if he had no fear of being found guilty.

  Tathea controlled her temper with an effort. Already the trial was threatening to run out of control, and she had not yet even spoken. In her mind their arrogance, their certainty that the law was corrupted beyond even the respect of lip service, was a supreme victory for Asmodeus.

  She looked at the man who was to represent them in their defence. She could see only the back of his head as he sat bent over his papers. He was slender, with thick, fair hair.

  He straightened up and turned very slowly to look at her, and suddenly she was cold. She gazed into the wide, blue-grey eyes of Ulciber. He smiled, and the strength drained out of her so it was all she could do not to collapse in her seat. She willed herself to face him, to remember the powers that supported her as well as those against. She must concentrate, think, fight.

  She turned back to the front. “My Lord Balour,” she began, her voice steady, a stranger might have even thought without emotion, “a blind woman of the streets, without money or status, but who worked to help the sick and the lost, was attacked by a group of men, raped, and then beaten to death. I intend to show this court that the men who did this thing are the four who stand here accused. I have witnesses and evidence to that end.”

  Balour’s lipless mouth spread in a smile, cold as a polar wind. He nodded very slowly, a silent indication to proceed.

  All day into the early evening Tathea called person after person who testified to Callia’s whereabouts—not that they were in doubt, but she knew the importance of correctly identifying the victim, and it gave her the chance to show in emotional terms the kindness and simplicity of the old woman’s life. By the time Tathea had finished, the common people in the gallery listening were caught in the rage of the crime and hardly one of them even moved position on the benches, let alone thought of leaving.

  By the end of the second day, without a single interruption or challenge from Ulciber, the lawyer for the soldiers’ defence, she had proved, both by witness and by physical evidence, that the four soldiers accused were indeed the ones responsible. And yet Ulciber showed no concern. His face was as smooth as if he were at his own dinner table, well fed and sipping wine with friends. Even Balour had not done more than nod comfortably, his hands moving with only their usual perpetual twitch.

  Tathea was worried. The enemy never slept; certainly he never retreated.

  That evening Ishrafeli said nothing to her of it, but she felt his tension as if it had been words, touch, a passion within her own skin. She could give him no reassurance. Her fear was even deeper than his.

  On the third day Ulciber rose to his feet at last and began the defence, smoothly, easily, with a smiling face. His first witness had nothing to do with the event at all, nothing even to do with Callia. Indeed he began by conceding with graciousness that she had been a good woman and had performed all the kindnesses Tathea had attributed to her, and no doubt many more as well.

  Then he asked his witness, a burly man with a quiet voice and scarred, weather-burned skin, to introduce himself and tell the Lord Balour and the court something of his life. Ulciber interrupted him only once to ask, quite casually, if he were acquainted with the accused men, to which he received a denial.

  As the man spoke Tathea began to perceive the path of the defence and nausea ran through her. The man was a soldier of long and honourable service. He had been one of the leaders of new recruits on the long march north to the barbarian frontier. He described the desolation he had seen, the long lines of exhausted refugees fleeing from the battlefront, frightened, bewildered, carrying what few possessions they could on their backs, leading even tiny children by the hand, stumbling, crying, lost.

  Then he described the burned villages and the trampled and torn-up crops, the bodies of the dead left unburied because there was no one left even to perform that decency.

  Lastly he told in simple and unflinching words of the horror of battle itself, how the hordes of savage horsemen swept out of the dawn, hair flying, voices screaming high and animal-like on the wind, the rain of arrows that pierced the flesh through to the bone, long before a lance could be raised, let alone a sword. He described the pain, the maiming. He told them what it was like to fight beside a friend, and the next moment see him dismembered in front of you, his entrails spilling out and his life gushing scarlet on to the earth, and be too helpless and sick to do anything but stare.

  Not a man or woman in the room moved. Tears ran silently down their faces and they clung to each other in paralysed grief.

  “Thank you,” Ulciber said gravely when at last the soldier finished. “I think you have told us a small portion of what it is like to be a soldier in battle. It is a life we who live safely here are spared from even imagining, worse than the most terrible nightmares of any of us.”

  “It changes you,” the soldier said succinctly. It was three words, but it was the sum of everything Ulciber wanted the court to understand.

  “And our men,” Ulciber asked softly, his voice a purr, “how do they bear such things? What do you do to help them survive?”

  “They have to do more than survive,” the soldier replied grimly. “They have to fight back, sla
ughter the barbarian in turn. Kill them wherever they find them.”

  “The men, the warriors?” Ulciber sounded as if he were merely clarifying.

  The soldier gave a grunt, his face now a little paler, his shoulders hunched. “All of them, women and children as well, if you find a camp. It’s natural. They’ve seen what the bloody savages did to ours!”

  “I see.” Ulciber nodded. For several moments there was a stunned silence in the room. Even Balour’s twitching hands were still until a spasm overtook him, then his nails on the bench were like the sound of rats’ feet on a floor. Never once did he take his eyes from Ulciber.

  “And when young men have seen and done such things,” Ulciber resumed at last, “how do you teach them to be the people they were before, to have pity and decency, to govern their emotions and treat others with respect?”

  “You don’t,” the soldier said harshly, anger and helplessness in his face. “You can’t. No man sees those things and comes back the same as he went. You thank God if he comes back at all.”

  Ulciber turned to Tathea and bowed, smiling at her and indicating that she might question his witness if she chose.

  She stood up slowly. She could not tell this Camassian crowd that years ago she had marched across the Shinabari desert and fought side by side with their soldiers, smelled the blood till it sickened her, felt the horror and the exhaustion, the pain of wounds. She could even have pushed back the sleeves of her robe and shown them the scars on her arms, thread-fine now, almost invisible. But none would believe her. This was a battle of passion, not logic. She was a woman, rape was a crime against women, war was men’s battle to protect the entire nation. She had lost almost before she had begun.

  Still the truth must be spoken, whether a dozen people heard it, or one, or none at all.

  “So in the horror of war against the barbarian you taught young men, like these accused, to slaughter the women and children of the enemy, as they had seen their own women and children slaughtered?” she asked levelly.

  “Yes ...” The answer was honest, but she saw the shadow of reluctance in it.