by David Hair
‘Alaron?’
He started guiltily, but it was only Ramita. The old Lakh scholar in the corner looked at her like she was an intruder and barked a warning. They eyeballed each other, but Ramita was clearly agitated, so Alaron stepped between them. ‘I’m done here,’ he said softly, trying to convey some of his excitement.
She caught his look, and her eyes lit up faintly.
‘How was court?’
Her nose wrinkled. ‘My behind is sore from sitting all day. And the children were squalling when I got back. These servants of the vizier know nothing about how to care for babies.’
Alaron grinned. ‘Let’s go and feed them.’ For the last week they’d been trying to get the twins to eat more solids, to help the weaning. It was messy, but kind of fun. His latest trick was to distract them with one hand while slipping food into their mouths with the other. The results had been mixed.
Ramita smiled warmly. ‘You are good with them, bhaiya.’
So they adjourned to the upper level, wrapped the twins in their heavily stained feeding blankets and spooned a stodgy mess of pumpkin and soft rice into demanding mouths, all the while making silly noises and pulling faces to entertain their charges. The food going in triggered waste coming out, and Alaron changed Nasatya’s wraps, then handed him to Ramita.
‘You know, I do not think my father ever helped my mother with these things, for any of us children,’ Ramita remarked, looking up at him with a fond look on her face. ‘It is not considered manly.’
Alaron shrugged. ‘My father cared for me. He was plenty manly.’
‘So are you,’ Ramita replied, unlacing the front of her smock. She allowed the twins only two feeds a day now, but it helped to ease the discomfort she was feeling. ‘You are a very good man.’
Something in her voice resonated with recognition, of something inside him or herself – he couldn’t tell which, but he found himself looking back at her, a sudden lump in his throat.
She’d been breastfeeding in front of him by necessity for so long he’d stopped noticing. it was like being with the lamiae women, who went topless all the time. But the mood was different tonight and he found himself consciously averting his eyes. They’d played out this scene so often, but this time his eyes kept sliding sideways, back to her. The evening light was glowing softly through the windows and onto her face, making her skin radiate and turning her eyes into luminous orbs that glowed. And she was looking at him differently too, not with her normal businesslike sheen, but more vulnerable.
She knew it too, because she abruptly shook herself and snapped, ‘Bhaiya, are you just going to stand there and stare, or are you going to change Dasra’s wraps?’
He changed Das silently, his back to her while she put Nas to her nipple. Her soft groan as the infant latched on was perhaps the most erotic thing he’d ever heard. His hands shook as he cleaned up and he had to swallow before he could speak.
‘So,’ he managed at last, ‘how was court, truly?’
She didn’t reply immediately, and as the silence drew out, he looked back at her and saw that she was silently crying, tears flowing in rivulets from the inside corners of her eyes. She cooed something to Nas and shifted him from the breast, looking down at him and stroking his head.
‘Tariq is just a boy,’ she said eventually. ‘He is fourteen and surrounded by old men who tell him what to do. He is suspicious of everyone and lives in fear. He overeats and he drinks more than he should for a boy of his age. He is turning to fat already. He plays favourites and lives for pleasure. But what he enjoys most is holding the power of life and death in his hands.’
‘He told you this?’
‘I could tell this by looking at him. He reminded me of those rich men who used to come to the markets, buying and selling what they pleased, careless of the cost. We traders would bow and scrape to them, do whatever they wanted, but we fleeced them and despised them.’
‘So you didn’t like him then?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘Will you marry him?’ he asked, his voice faint.
‘I don’t know. Hanook and Dareem think it’s for the best, but I am not so sure.’
Alaron swallowed. He wasn’t sure that his advice on this matter was entirely neutral any more. He enjoyed her odd mix of pragmatism and spirituality, and despite the growing feeling that Hanook was as good a person as any to hand over the Scytale to, doubts remained. He knew that the moment he surrendered it, his role in this drama, and in Ramita’s life, was effectively over, and that was scaring him too. What was he without the Scytale? Just an outlaw in his own lands.
If I give up the Scytale to them, I may as well become a monk after all … But I don’t want that … I want a family, and my friends around me. I want a life, not a hermitage …
He swallowed and concentrated on pinning Das’ wrap, then went to Ramita and bent to take the snuffling and contented Nas, while she fastened the front of her smock. Before he could move away, she seized his right hand and pointedly examined his rakhi-string. It had lost its decorations, and the orange colouring had been all but leeched out from months of bathing, sweat and travel. ‘I need to get you a new rakhi, bhaiya. Tomorrow is the feast of Raksha Bandan, the celebration of brother and sister. You must bring me a gift.’
‘I don’t have anything to give you,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘Only my loyalty.’
She smiled sadly. ‘That is more than enough, bhaiya.’
He pulled his hand away. ‘Ramita, Hanook told you where your family is. You could live with them, safely hidden. You don’t have to submit to what he wants. It isn’t Destiny or Duty.’
‘You don’t understand, bhaiya,’ she whispered. ‘After I returned with Dareem, Hanook told me that the mughal has agreed that my sons will be adopted if I wed him. They will be princes, perhaps even mughal one day! That is the essence of my Duty: to do well for my children. That is what my father did for me, and now I can do the same for my children.’
‘But—’
‘Bhaiya, I need to be alone now. I have heard your advice, but I do not need to take it.’
‘Ramita, we’ve got the Kore-bedamned Scytale—’
Her eyes flared. ‘OUT!’
The twins burst into tears at the sudden shout, and the cacophony drove him from the room.
Baranasi, Lakh, on the continent of Antiopia
Shaban (Augeite) 929
14th month of the Moontide
Huriya Makani stalked the backstreets of her old hometown, seeking an elusive scent. Males of the pack flanked her, now and then uttering low growls to drive off the stray dogs that haunted the streets. They’d left their horses at the fringes of the city with Kenner guarding them. Huriya was wrapped in a thick cloak to conceal her gauzy red silks. Night had long fallen, and away from the market stalls that sold food and drink to the passersby, the city was silent. Families had retreated to their tiny homes, packed together cheek and jowl in hovels like badly stacked crates, oblivious to the passing shapeshifters.
The scent she sought could not be found anywhere from Aruna Nagar to the river. It didn’t linger in the former home of the Ankesharan family – they were long gone, and a new family roosted there. Huriya snapped a command to her escort and they padded onward. Ramita’s family might have left, but surely others remained who knew where they’d gone? And she knew exactly the right place to start looking.
The house she sought was just as she recalled it, grimy on the outside but solid – but that was normal here, where the close-packed life made exteriors public property. She used her gnosis to float to the first-floor balcony. The doors were open to the night air and oil lamps shone inside, making the polished slate floor glow and the sequins in the wall-tapestries shimmer. It was only the home of a trader, but he was a prince among merchants: Vikash Nooradin – Ispal Ankesharan’s friend.
Laughter, the clink of goblets and the low buzz of conversation reached her from the dining room. She shed her cloak and slipped into the lounge,
her hands trailing over fine fabric furniture coverings and decorative artefacts. Rose and poppy candles scented the air. A gauzy veil was draped over the back of a seat and she wound herself in it for the sheer pleasure of feeling the texture against her skin. Then she extended her senses and listened in on the conversation in the next room.
Vikash Nooradin and his wife had guests, but it wasn’t Ispal Ankesharan and his family, or anyone else she could recognise by their voices. But perhaps they’ll know where Ispal is if Vikash doesn’t?
She stepped out of the shadows and into the dining room whilst pulling her gnosis into readiness about her. The voice of Sabele whispered in her ear, as it had ever since that day on the Isle of Glass when she had swallowed the old woman’s soul. It still had the power to chill her: Sabele was inside her, intact and waiting. Sometimes she found it very hard to work out where she ended and where the hag whose powers she’d stolen began.
I am me. You are just a ghost.
Sabele laughed. You think you’re my first, girlie? I’ve had more lives than you dare dream. Shall I show you?
Shut up, old hag. You’re nothing but a piece of my memory.
No, girlie. That’s what you’re on the way to becoming.
Her sudden rage made her power flare and every head in the dining room turned towards her.
To them it looked like a beautiful and near-naked young woman simply appeared out of thin air – an Apsara or a Rakas – then Vikash Nooradin’s eyes bulged with recognition. ‘Huriya Makani?’
‘Hello, Uncle Vikash. It’s lovely to see you again.’
*
Her pack filled the house. Jackal-headed men and women humped on the sofas and rugs. Giant wolves and cats lolled around, tearing at the remains of the servants and dinner guests. Once stripped of the flesh, the bloodied bones were chewed over: their gnostic hunger might be satisfied, but their bellies wanted more.
Only Vikash Nooradin was still alive, and that would not be for much longer.
Vikash didn’t know where Ispal Ankesharan and his family were, and neither did his fat, pretentious wife. It had given Huriya enormous pleasure to cut that cow’s throat. There remained the question of whether there was anything at all she could learn from Vikash before she let her followers loose on him for the last time.
He was past words now. The past four hours had reduced the clever, urbane merchant into a piteous ruin. But she didn’t need words from him; not now her mind was buried deep inside his and she was turning over his memories of his last moments with Ispal Ankesharan. What she was doing would have left Vikash a drooling vegetable for the rest of his life, but he was fatally harmed anyway.
The Ankesharans had left Baranasi three months after Ramita, telling no one their destination. Soldiers had loaded the wagons, unmarked with any kind of symbols or sigils; they left nothing behind except a parting gift of two lak – years of income for a small trader – as a thank-you to Vikash. They were missed, but no word came.
Huriya scowled, sulking as the trader’s consciousness slipped away fruitlessly. Where are you, Ispal?
‘You’re going to need a Necromancer if he doesn’t talk soon,’ Malevorn said in a flat, dispassionate voice. He’d taken in the torture without emotion; indeed, he’d offered suggestions. He was clad in the garb of a Keshi mercenary, and with his face now tanned and his black hair and whiskers grown out, he looked almost Dhassan.
‘He knows nothing,’ she replied, certain of it. ‘Kill him.’ She pulled out her small eating knife, honed the edge with a waft of the gnosis and handed it handle-first to the Inquisitor. He met her eyes, knew she was testing him.
Try to turn that knife on me and I’ll crush you.
The Inquisitor, his gnosis still Chained, was not so stupid: with slow precision, Malevorn showed Vikash the blade, then pushed it slowly through his eye and into his brain. The trader cried out wordlessly, disbelieving until the very last that his life would end this way. Then he deflated and was gone.
Huriya studied Malevorn, oddly excited by his ruthlessness.
We of the Brethren are a broad church. I think there is room for a former Inquisitor …
Malevorn wiped the blade clean on a tablecloth and returned it. She smiled approvingly. ‘Did you learn where the Ankesharan family went?’ he asked.
She had indeed seen something: the glimpse of a face. Vikash had seen it at a distance only, and it wasn’t much, but Sabele had recognised the stamp of the features because she had seen an older version of it. ‘I saw a face, I think, of the son of someone known to me. Do you know the name Hanook?’
He shook his head.
‘Hanook is the Vizier of Lakh. I think perhaps he has whisked Ramita’s family away somewhere, which means we must go to Teshwallabad and have a serious word with him.’
29
Slaves
The Slave Trade
Man has enslaved man since time immemorial. So how can anyone claim it to be unnatural?
BAYL TAVOISSON, TREASURER, PALLAS, 811
The city produces a surfeit of useless men and women. The slavers do us a kindness in paying to take them away.
RASAIYAH, CALIPHA OF BASSAZ, 840
What saddens us most is the hideous complicity of the elites of all nations in this demeaning trade.
ANTONIN MEIROS, 843
Southern Kesh, on the continent of Antiopia
Shaban (Augeite) 929
14th month of the Moontide
Cymbellea lay on the rock beside the lion, thankful to take the weight off her legs, and gazed out over the valley below. They’d been trailing a column of men, women and children trudging northwards with heads bowed, since they’d stumbled across them the previous day, after three weeks of travelling eastwards through southern Kesh. Red-cloaked legionaries flanked the column, the lowering sun glinting off their steel helms. More menacing yet were the riders alongside: the Sacred Heart was emblazoned on their tabards and they were borne by horned steeds. Inquisitors.
Beside her the lion’s hackles rose again and a low rumble escaped his throat. The great cat was shaggy and rough-looking from weeks on the road. He was lying on his belly, head raised as he scanned, whiskers twitching.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, but it’s hard to be certain.’
Zaqri snarled,
‘Usually it’s ordinary legions who collect slaves, not Inquisitors.’
It felt like a long shot to Cym, but what other options did they have? ‘How?’
They trailed the column north to a new campsite a mile on, and as the sun set and the air cooled, they crept closer and found a perch from which to observe. The Inquisitors were in hostile territory and they knew it, judging by the wards set about the camp. The people they were herding were a mixture of Dhassan and Keshi from the borderlands, men and women, old and young, even children and infants at the breast. They had been allowed to bring food and bedrolls – presumably to make the march easier for the Inquisitors to manage. There was little use of whips or chains; it was obvious fear was quite enough to cow the people.
Then they noticed the eleventh rider.
He wasn’t an Inquisitor, yet he rode a khurne. He was wearing a bekira-shroud, and yet Cym and Zaqri were both sure he was a man. And when they looked at him using gnostic sight, there was something that pricked Zaqri’s interest. It was too far away to tell for sure, but Zaqri thought he might be of his kind.
They backed away into the gloom. Once line of sight was broken, Zaqri rose onto two legs, changing shape fluidl
y, and they jogged through the twilight, back to the place where they had left their possessions, then set up camp for the night. Zaqri had caught a desert hare that afternoon and they had stripped a clump of berry bushes they had passed earlier, wolfing handfuls of the fruit, relishing the rich red juices filling their mouths. Partway through, Cym realised that he was surreptitiously watching her, but she was used to his regard by now; she found it oddly flattering. They’d been living so intimately for so long that desire was an unspoken facet of their complex dance.
They hadn’t mated again, though – and she really disliked the word: ‘mated’ had implications of animal coupling driven by monthly cycles. Despite her antipathy for the notion, however, she felt incredibly in touch with the rhythms of her body, from these months of living so close to nature. As her fertile period approached, she could feel a warm heaviness in her loins at nights, eroding her fortitude, her desire to be aloof and hostile. She knew Zaqri sensed it too, but his discipline was iron-hard, as it had been since he met her. It was a strange feeling: she could not forgive, but sustaining hatred was so hard.
Some nights she knew he could not sleep until he’d gone off and purged his own needs. This would be one of those nights; she could feel it in his heat and his eyes. She had nights like that too, but she was careful to control herself, ashamed that she had such urges at all around him.
That night she faced away from him, trying to ignore his eyes on her back, until finally she had to roll over. He was loosely wrapped in a blanket, lying on his back with his head propped on his bundle of spare clothing, his chest and shoulders bare. In the moonlight he looked carved from ivory, a magnificent physical specimen. And his beauty was not merely skin-deep, despite his condition. He carried his hungers with the dignity of an alpha predator.
One of her best friends among the Rimoni had been married off to a man she didn’t desire, in a different caravan, and whenever the two caravans happened to meet, she would confide a little of her married life to Cym. Last time they met up, her friend had two children, though there was no pretence of love. ‘Don’t worry about love,’ she’d told Cym once. ‘You can make babies with a man you don’t like – you can even enjoy the bedding. Love is not necessary.’
