My companion pulled me into an alleyway that looked blind, between a warehouse and a high stone wall. Without warning, halfway along the alley, he gave me a shove that sent me sprawling face-down on to the muddy ground. I braced myself for the first kick. None came. When I turned on to my back, the moon was in my face and the alley was empty.
Almost empty. A grey figure like a ghost materialized in the blind end of the alley and drifted silently towards me. My jaw dropped when I recognized it. I sat up and made the Tatakil sign of greeting for a revenant from the dead. It stopped, gazing down at me. "Oh, Calla," I whispered, "I knew they'd killed you."
The ghost hunkered down at my side. "But I'm not dead, Tig," it said.
* * *
16
CALLA MADE A mystery out of what was already a miracle. She cut through my joy at seeing her alive and brushed away my questions. "There are things you don't need to know." That was the sum of what she told me.
Sunrise was coming. Glancing at the sky, Calla pulled me to the supposedly blind end of the alley, through a gap just wide enough to squeeze past, into a yard beside the warehouse. Beyond that, I lost track of where she led me, retaining only an impression of dark lanes and dirty narrow passages like tunnels, steep stairways between overhanging buildings, hidden entrances into cavernous cellars with hidden exits—also an impression that the entire population of Malvi was blind, since nobody seemed to see us, not even when Calla's route took us through a cellar room where at least a dozen men were at breakfast. We fetched up at last in the attic of what had been quite an imposing villa, though its airy chambers were now cut by a multitude of thin partitions and the garden I could see through a hole in the wall was a maze of lean-tos dotted with smashed statuary.
A Flamen was there, one of Faruli's pupils in the science of healing. He tutted over the weeping sores on my neck and applied a dry poultice that stung mightily at first, but deadened all feeling after a few moments. A child came in with a large bowl of broth, to which the Flamen added some herbs. Calla prevailed on me to drink every drop, though my stomach felt like a clenched fist and the herbs left a bitter, bilious taste.
"Now you must try to sleep," she said firmly. "We're leaving for the city tonight by a roundabout way and you'll need all your strength."
"Tell me first," I said.
Calla glanced at the Flamen, who discreetly glided out of the room. "Tell you what?"
"Why the Sherank released me. Who the hooded personage was. What you had to do to get me out."
"There are things," she repeated, "that you do not need to know."
"That won't do."
"It will have to." She looked at me gravely. "How could I have faced Bekri if I let you be taken to Sher? It would have killed him. You were with me, and I led you straight into the hands of the levy. So I did what was necessary—you don't need to know what that was, nor does the First Flamen." She paused. "Did you really think I was dead?"
"Yes. But that has nothing to do with—"
"Were you sad?"
The question pushed me off balance. "Of course I was sad." My internal censor stopped me at that point, before any nonsense emerged about how particularly grievously sad.
She sighed as if suddenly very tired. "Go to sleep, Tig. Maybe someday I'll tell you. Until then, don't ask." She turned to leave.
I opened my mouth and shut it again. When she was gone, I lowered myself like an old man to the pallet and obediently shut my eyes.
Though I felt like a piece of chewed string, sleep was a long time coming. Apart from the mystery Calla had left unanswered, the main reason was guilt. Guilt at lying on what felt like the softest pallet in Gil, while my levy-mates still sweated upright in their neck-braces; guilt at being on dry land; guilt at having a full belly; guilt at being free. My rational side explained patiently that those men would gain nothing by having me share their suffering, whereas Gil would gain everything if my mission succeeded, which it couldn't possibly do if I were off panning salt in Sher. Very true; but, however persuasive this was, it did little to blot out the image of my nameless, faceless friend trudging up the gangplank to slavery and death.
We left Malvi that night using Calla's roundabout route, which roughly doubled the distance. My limbs felt like they were tacked on by a bad tailor; the sores on my neck started to bleed through the poultice. Therefore we stopped frequently to rest on the mazy paths and at the edges of freshly ploughed fields, sipping from a gourd of bittersweet tonic which the healing Flamen had given us. Once, while we were resting on a slight rise that overlooked the Malvi road, several troops of Sherank passed below us headed for the city, close enough so that we could hear the clinking of their weapons. At their head was a small group on horseback. I stretched my neck cautiously to see over the bushes.
"Isn't that Lord Shree? The one with a crest?"
"Maybe," said Calla. She didn't sound very interested. "Better keep down."
I craned again. "I'd wager those are the troops that took us to Malvi last night. There're certainly enough of them."
"Maybe," Calla repeated.
"I don't remember seeing Lord Shree at the harbour, though."
She shrugged without interest, and said, "Malvi's a big place now. We'll wait till they're well past before going on."
Just after sunrise, and without further incident, we arrived at the headquarters of the Web. We slept the rest of that day.
I expected Bekri to be on my side; that is, I expected him to extract from Calla, forthwith and with no mucking about, exactly how she had talked the Sherank into letting me go free. He disappointed me.
"There are things we do not need to know," he said.
I was getting tired of hearing that. We were sitting in the council chamber and Mysheba was trying valiantly to make me eat something nourishing but horrible. I waved the bowl away. "I need to know."
Bekri shifted his eye to Calla, who was sitting impassively on a cushion by the end of the sofa. Jebri hovered by the door. For a change, he was not wringing his little hands; he glanced at me from time to time, but mostly he watched Calla. He looked thoughtful, and not very happy.
"Calla?" said Bekri. "I can't blame the Scion for being curious, and I'm rather curious myself. Are you able to tell us anything?"
"No, Revered Bekri." She repeated it with her fingers—a firm and final no.
"You see, Tig? Calla, you may go. Mysheba, I really don't think the Scion is going to eat that. Perhaps you could bring up some of your lovely pâté?" He waited until aunt and niece had left the room, and then continued, "Tig, there are questions we do not ask in the Web."
"But surely for something like this—"
"A remarkable achievement, I agree," he broke in. "The first time in Kekashr's rule that anyone has been forgiven the levy. But I can't press her."
"Why not?"
"Because she doesn't wish to tell us, and I trust her to have a good reason."
"I don't understand. She's in the Web—you're the First Flamen. What reason could be good enough?"
"I can think of one," he said dryly. "Many of our people have secret contacts in the Gilgard—some so secret and so valuable that the Web at large cannot be trusted with their names. We do have the occasional traitor, you know. Isn't the right, Jebri?"
"Alas, yes." The Second Flamen sat down beside Bekri.
I watched them both narrowly. "But she could trust you two, couldn't she—and me? We're hardly about to turn traitor."
"Even the most loyal can be tortured, Tig. Could you guarantee your own silence? I couldn't."
I looked at his scars, tried to imagine them raw and bleeding, tried to imagine the process that carved them into his body all those years ago. It was an illuminating exercise. "I suppose I couldn't either," I said grudgingly.
"Well, then."
We sat in silence for a few moments; I was more than halfway convinced, but still feverish with questions. Finally I said, "If you can't require Calla to tell us, at least give me your opinio
n. Do you think she has a contact in the Gilgard?"
"Probably. Almost certainly."
"What are we talking about, then? Bribery? Blackmail?" I paused, not liking the next word. "Seduction?"
"One or another, maybe all three, maybe some other form of collaboration."
I was shocked. "Calla's not a collaborator. She couldn't be."
"Why not?" He leaned forward earnestly. "Collaboration and resistance are fingers on the same hand. Think of Calvo—scullery master for the Sherank, rich and fat while the rest of us are poor and thin; who could be more of a collaborator than Calvo? He's hated by those who don't know what he does for Gil. Without Sherkin protection, he'd be dead in a day. And yet he's a loyal member of the Web, and more valuable than any of our firebrands."
There was a brisk knock at the door, breaking the mood. Mysheba peered in with a covered plate in her hands and such determination on her face that she looked like Calla's twin. "My lord?" she said.
Bekri grinned and settled back on the sofa. "There's no escape for you this time. Take him and feed him, Mysheba. Tig, put yourself in her hands—she's had her instructions from Faruli. You need to be well on your feet in four days from now."
"You mean—?"
"The date was fixed before we knew you'd been taken in the levy. Calvo can't change it now, except by moving it back by another month. Will you be strong enough?"
"I'll be strong enough." I took the plate from Mysheba, shut my eyes, and began to eat. But after a few mouthfuls, I paused with the spoon halfway to my lips. "There is one thing, Bekri. There was a man behind me in the levy who was kind to me. He must have lived somewhere near the Swan's Neck; he had a wife, three children and ailing parents, and his brother was taken in the last levy. Can we find his family and help them?"
Bekri and Mysheba exchanged a glance that was partly pity. Jebri rubbed his hands officiously. "His name?" he asked.
"I don't know. I've told you everything I do know."
Jebri shrugged. "We can try to find them, my lord; but remember how many families are left destitute every time we're levied. We haven't the resources to help them all."
There was a flash of anger inside my head. Not at the Second Flamen, though he was irritating enough; not even directly at the Sherank, but at our helplessness, at the fate that placed us in a lifeboat with a limited number of ropes to throw to the drowning. "Help these ones," I said curtly.
Three days passed. Calla was friendly but distant, like an amiable stranger, except during the mock battles that Faruli recommended for (ha!) gentle exercise. At those times, she badgered me and lectured me, and occasionally swatted me comfortably on the back when I scored a point or got past her guard. That was the most warmth I had from her, but it was satisfying enough. For the rest, I choked down everything Mysheba put before me, swallowed Faruli's most dire potions without a murmur and blocked everything except the moment from my mind. Suddenly, without my taking much notice, the days were gone and it was the eve of my new career as a washer of dishes and a saviour of nations.
Mysheba sent me to bed early that night, but her good intentions were wasted. I tossed on my pallet for what seemed like hours, wide-eyed and freezing. Images of Calla mixed with images of Lord Shree in his crested helmet, of Brislo, of leisurely death in the Gilman's Pleasure; and then fragments of Exile began to intrude, Arko's stump of a leg, Marori's dark warnings, the resigned faces of the training Flamens as they watched me, time after time, bungle my lessons. It was impossible to believe that I would do any better when the real test came. At last I flung myself off the pallet and went to the little window—it was a more pleasing view by night, the darkness masking the squalor, and the lights of Gilgard Castle, no matter who lit them, still beautiful. I was watching a thin horned moon lift itself off the summit of the mountain when someone slid quietly through the curtain and padded to the bed.
"Tig?" Calla's voice.
"Here, by the window."
"Is anything wrong? Mysheba was worried about you. She said you hardly ate any supper."
"I wasn't hungry."
"Oh, weren't you?" Mild disbelief. "You should have been. And why aren't you asleep?"
"I can't sleep. I think I'm afraid." I turned back to the window, embarrassed by my own frankness.
"Me too."
"You, Calla? Afraid?"
"Terrified." She crossed the room softly and stood close beside me. She was telling the truth. Even from a few inches away, I could sense the tension in her body. There was a long silence while we looked out together over the dark rooftops of Gil. Calla broke it at last.
"Tig? You've done well in the past weeks. I'm starting to think you just might survive." For a moment I thought she was trying to reassure me; but a tremor in her voice gave me the mad idea that she was reassuring herself. Very kind of her to care, I thought. I said, "Of course I'll survive."
She looked at me gravely—I could just make out her face. "You'll find the Lady."
"I'm sure I will." I wasn't, actually, but the lie was rewarded. Calla's eyes closed and her face relaxed. She moved closer, until our bodies touched; her dark hair, brushed and smelling lightly of soap and woodsmoke, came to rest against my cheek. Awkwardly, I put my arms around her. Warmth filtered through the rags dividing us.
We stood so for a few moments. I could feel the firmness of her body, and was ashamed of my own soft and flabby frame—until I remembered that the Flamens and the Gil-gut had conspired to pare my fat away. Then it occurred to me that it didn't matter a flea's-weight what my body was like—this could only be a kind of comradely embrace, however nice it felt. She would move away in a second and give some tart instruction for the morning; she would look at me coolly and remind me, though not in so many words, that I was a clown, a coward and a weakling; she would—
She kissed me; her lips tasted of some aromatic herb. Certain pleasurable sensations, not unlike those experienced while transcribing the Erotic Mistifalia in the archives, began to stir in parts of my body that I generally ignored. We regarded each other, our faces on a level and only an inch or two apart. I coughed.
"Well, I—I suppose we should say good night," I stammered.
"Why?" she said. She kissed me again.
* * *
17
SOMEONE WAS SHAKING my shoulder. My other arm was being pressed down by a warm and pleasant but unidentified weight. I lifted myself on the free elbow and blinked sleepily into Mysheba's candlelit face. She smiled down on me.
"You must get up now, Lord Tigrallef. I've brought you some breakfast. Oh, and Bekri wants to see you before you go. Hurry now, get dressed!" She patted my head and vanished through the curtain. Muffled from the council chamber, there came the sounds of feet and low voices.
I freed my shoulder and sat up, yawning, aware that something was different this morning, something momentous and wonderful and not terribly well-understood, but completely beyond me for the moment. Of course I realized that this was to be the day I first entered the Gilgard, the seat of my ancestors, the fortress of my enemies, more or less in the footsteps of my father—though he wouldn't have dreamed of entering through the scullery—but that wasn't it. It was something much happier than that. I sneezed and gave up, and peered at the tray Mysheba had left on the floor. There were two beakers of broth on it. On the pallet beside me, Calla stretched.
The mists cleared. "Great Lady in Gil," I said faintly.
Calla reached over me to pick up a beaker, briefly exposing bare shoulders, a flash of white breast. "Sleep well?" she asked. "Come on, drink up, it's nearly sunrise. We want to make a good impression on the Koroskans, don't we?"
"But Calla—" I stared at her. She blew on the broth, sipped it as she climbed nimbly over me and started rooting about in the scatter of our rags on the floor. "But Calla—" I repeated stupidly. Her back was narrow and very smooth, and the sight of it robbed me of speech. She pulled a grimy vest over it. "Your breakfast is getting cold," she said.
"But Calla—
" I said for the third time.
She paused with her britches at her knees, and looked at me curiously. "What is it, Tig? Are you feeling all right?"
"No. Yes!" I groped among a thousand things to say, some of them rather eloquent. "But Calla—"
A lovely, tousled smile. Fully dressed, she sat down on the bed beside me and continued calmly with her breakfast. "Never mind, Tig," she said. "What happened, happened. Think of it this way—we were finally able to sleep."
"Sleep!" Memories were flooding back now, none of them involving sleep. My hands shook when I tried to pick up the second beaker, and a few drops of broth splashed on to my chest, which was naked—as was the rest of me. "How can you be so casual?" I demanded. "Was that all it meant to you? A way of putting yourself to sleep?"
"What? No, of course not."
"Then how do you feel?"
"About what?" She looked at me innocently over the beaker.
I slammed my own beaker down on the floor, untasted, grimacing as hot broth slopped over my hand. "About me. About the fact that you shared my bed last night. About the fact that we—"
"I feel fine, Lord of Gil," she interrupted coolly, "but there's no time now for talking. Just drink up."
I took an angry, unwise gulp of broth. While I was still gagging at the hot grease in my throat, she padded to the door. Without another word, she looked back at me, her face in shadow, and then was gone.
"Calla! Wait!" I cried. I threw off the blanket and stumbled naked after her through the curtained doorway—and halted. The whole Council of Flamens was there, solemn-faced, hugely dignified, tactfully silent, decked out in ragtag green regalia and arranged in a ceremonial semicircle with Bekri at the midpoint. I squawked with horror and dived back into the bedchamber. A few moments later, I stepped out again to receive, fully clothed, the honours for a departing hero. Calla might have warned me.
Gil Trilogy 1: Lady in Gil Page 12
