by Steven Poore
The rest of the Watch had caught up with the first rank by this time, and Cassia realised with mounting desperation that she had been forced away from the door. She was cut off from any escape back inside. She dragged herself back again, on her hands and knees now.
A flailing blow with the greatsword struck one of her assailants on the arm, and he reeled back in a sudden gout of blood. But there were far too many of them. All it took in the end was for a man to stand upon her arm, and another to prise the sword from her fingers. She was hauled up to her feet and helmeted men ringed about her, shouting into her face.
Her head thumped with the sound of drums; the voices barely pierced the blood-thick beat. She tried to raise her hands to cover her ears, but the Watch had her secure now, and they dragged her down the alley, away from the safety of the dhar. She saw the officer in charge of the Watch – a man with a chain shirt beneath his green cloak – stood with another, much younger man who wore gold-trimmed silks, but before she could even begin to plead her case or beg for help for Leili and Malessar, she was picked up bodily by two of the guards. They held her in the air while someone else bound her hands – and then a dark sack was pulled over her head.
No. No, this can’t be happening. I can’t leave Malessar – the dhar – Leili!
I am the Heir to –
For a moment it felt as though she was falling, with only the beat of her heart and the terrible drums to mark the passage of time, and then she landed hard on wooden boards, all the remaining resistance knocked from her.
There was movement all around her; the sounds of feet stamping through the streets, the clatter and juddering of wheels beneath her, urgent voices passing orders over her head. She caught enough to make sense of her destination.
Not even the Watch house, a few minutes from Fahrian Square.
The Palace.
It was only the way the light moved that told Cassia how much time had passed. She saw the thin shaft of light crawl across the walls, but it barely registered. Her thoughts were locked inside a never-ending reconstruction of her life over the last few months, swooping down like a bird of prey to seize individual moments over and over again, tearing them apart to discover what had been hidden within. The audacious scale of Baum’s planning – the way he had sown the seeds of his plot so many years before, watching and biding his time until everything was just right. He had trailed Cassia as bait for the warlock, an echo of the past to catch his interest. And at the same time he had manipulated her thoughts and her feelings, so that she came to respect Malessar. To trust him. To defend him. It must always have been his plan to put the warlock’s sword in her hands, she realised. He had waited nine centuries to do that; he would have waited another nine if he needed to.
Could I have prevented this? Was there a point at which I could have said No, and stopped this whole tragedy? The light moved further across the cell as she went back over events again and again. The docks at Hellea: she could have just walked away from the ship. And before that – if she had left the city and returned North when she found that Baum and Meredith had apparently abandoned her. Even in the mountains, after her father had run away, she could have done the same. Surely she could have lost her pursuers before they even knew she had gone.
And here, in Galliarca, she’d had the option of running, of leaving Malessar behind once she knew him for who he really was. But by that point I was hooked. He was not as Baum described him to me. Nobody had been, she realised; least of all herself.
He needed me.
And it had been the best, most carefree period of her life. Magical, even. The nights she had spent in Fahrian Square – both as an observer and a storyteller – seemed like half-remembered legends now. When the afternoon faded into dusk she thought she could hear the change in the pitch of the noise from over in the mede, dulled by the high walls of the palace compound.
The soldiers came then, without warning. Two heavy, armoured guards dominated the doorway for a moment, glaring down at her, and she feared for her life for an instant, before they tossed down a tattered sack that contained the rest of her clothes and slammed the door again.
That meant something had happened at the dhar. Cassia spent the next few hours worrying over every possibility, discarding some, obsessing over others. Each alternative became a separate catastrophe. The sky had darkened and then shaded back to crimson dawn before she managed to sleep, and even then it was only in fits and starts, laced with nightmares and the persistent beating of drums.
Have they forgotten me? Do they mean to leave me here until I rot? What about Leili? Malessar? Are they alive? They could be in the cells next to this one and I would never know. I don’t even know why I am here. And the North . . . the curse is broken. I can’t stay here.
I am the Heir to the North.
She had no control. No rudder. And that voice, those drums – they were merciless. They could only mean that worse was to come. Cassia found it all too easy after that to convince herself that she should be locked away. As punishment for her stupidity. Her naivety. For her own good. For the sake of the North.
She barely noticed that midday had come around again. The cell was as dark as it had been in the early morning. There were sounds from beyond the door, boots scuffing on stone, muffled and distorted voices. One or two shouts – though whether of pain or otherwise, she could not tell. There was no regular pattern to any of it, and nobody else had stopped by her cell since the previous night. Cassia was hungry, but she could not even stir herself to hammer on the door and demand food.
She looked up at the door and was surprised to find it standing open. She had not heard the lock turn or the hinges creak, or the approach of the men who now crowded the doorway.
“I said, can you hear me?” the first man said. He was the young commander in gold-trimmed silks she had seen in the street. He wore a deep-green cloak now, and a dark tunic beneath that, but the cloth was plainly of the best quality and there were rampant lions embroidered on his collar. A smile of faint amusement touched the corners of his mouth. The two men accompanying him were both much taller and broader. Their swords were sheathed, but they held thick studded cudgels.
The commander had spoken Hellean to her. She stared up at him for a moment, trying to work out if the smile was friendly or faked. It was as hopeless as trying to read Meredith’s expression.
“I’m busy,” she said, in Galliarcan. “Please come back later.”
The smile broadened a little. “That would not be convenient, I’m afraid. You need to come with me.”
Cassia stood and reached over to start bundling up her clothes. If his smile was genuine then perhaps she was worrying over nothing. Perhaps Leili – or even Malessar – had smoothed over the trouble.
“You can leave those here,” the commander said.
She hesitated, and then dropped them back onto the floor. Perhaps not.
He led her past a row of stout cell doors until they came to a low-ceilinged guard room. Their escorts loomed behind, silent and intimidating.
“I am Rais,” the commander said. He looked back at her as though he expected a reaction, but when she gave him none, he merely shrugged and continued regardless. “I will be your representative in this hearing. You are Cassia, the storyteller, is that correct?”
No longer the storyteller’s daughter, she noted distantly. “Yes.”
“The Northern one. Even I have heard of you.” Rais led her down another long corridor. “They say you are rather good.”
“Thank you,” Cassia said. It was not the time or place for such praise though. She could not tell what to make of him. “Are you mocking me?”
Rais paused. “Mocking you? Of course not. Who would dare be so cutting, when you have shown such fearsome skills with a blade?”
Now he was making fun of her, she was certain. It fanned the fading embers of her emotions. How dare he do that, after all that has happened? Painfully aware of the guards behind her, she clenched her fists and forc
ed down her temper. One other thought crossed her mind. “What of the man I . . . I wounded?”
“He was lucky,” Rais said. Then, in a more sober voice, “And so were you.”
So far she had not taken much notice of the corridors and long chambers they had passed through. Now, with Rais’s changed tone, she started to pay more attention. There were shaded gardens and covered walks around virtually every corner, the walls and columns decorated with carved frescos. Gods and kings, proving their worth on the field of battle, and against each other. Virile princes, courting and competing. All of the gardens were quiet: Cassia guessed the Court had retired, just as the rest of the city did, until the sun had dipped far enough for the uncomfortable heat of the day to lessen again. She was already sweating, and even Rais looked to be affected.
An odd time of the day to be doing this, she thought. Whatever this was.
Her escort was a strange man too. He did not fit the shape of a commander of the Watch. He seemed . . . too detached, maybe. She took the opportunity to scrutinise his features and his clothing more closely and concluded that he was not a soldier at all. His hands bore no calluses, and he did not walk like a soldier. Cassia began to wonder where they were headed – and why.
At the thought, Rais halted again, outside a set of doors that were more functional than others they had passed, banded with iron rather than polished brass. A quick glance around her told Cassia that this was probably one of the palace’s administrative wings. The walls here were as plain as the doors.
“Remember,” Rais told her. “I am your representative in this hearing. Please do not interrupt.”
Cassia nodded her understanding, and Rais smiled. “Good.” He pushed upon the doors and they swung silently inward, so perfectly weighted and hung that the movement appeared close to sorcerous. Narjess would love this craftsmanship, Cassia thought, before she could catch herself.
The room beyond the doors – no, this wasn’t a room, but a shrine of some description. A temple. Wide marble columns led down a tiled floor to a set of steps at the far end, and on the platform at the top was a low, wide altar apparently fashioned from solid gold. Robed men stood in the open ante-chambers to either side of the columns, talking amongst themselves in low voices. Many wore the dark-green of the Watch, whether as a tunic, or as a part of the patterning on a robe. They watched her with varying degrees of amusement and interest. Cassia felt very much out of place.
I am the Heir to the North.
The two guards pressed her forward, and she had to move before she stumbled, following Rais into the hall. The accumulating weight of attention constricted her chest, making her breath hard and shallow. Somehow she managed to keep her gaze fixed upon Rais’s back, aware that another figure awaited them at the bottom of the steps.
“Cassia the storyteller approaches the Court of the Watch,” Rais announced in Galliarcan. His voice echoed through the hall.
The figure at the base of the steps was an old woman who wore thick green robes that hid her frame. Green scarves were wrapped tight around her head. Cassia was reminded of the old oracles that still dominated a few of the villages outside Varro: charismatic and authoritative. Dangerous, too, since they were so highly regarded. Even the Factors were wary of directly confronting them.
“To seek justice or to hear it?” the old woman asked.
“To hear it.”
“Then here is justice. There are three accusations. That Cassia the storyteller did not surrender, upon demand, to the Watch. That Cassia the storyteller drew arms against the Watch. And that Cassia the storyteller wounded, with a blade, a man of the Watch.”
She had failed to catch at least part of that: it was only when Rais translated it back into Hellean for her that she understood the significance of this hearing. I am on trial. But I’ve not even been given a chance to explain myself . . .
Cassia started to raise her head and drew in a breath to defend her actions, but Rais moved smoothly in front of her, his hand pushing firmly against her ribs. “The accusations cannot be denied.”
Boiling with suppressed anger, Cassia barely heard the old woman speak again. She glared at Rais’s shoulders until he turned to face her once more. “Justice demands reparation,” he translated. “If you had not wounded the man, you would only have been whipped, fined and imprisoned.”
“Only that?” she asked scathingly. Rais stared back at her without flinching. In fact, he looked rather pleased with the verdict.
“However, as blood has been spilled, you – as a Northerner and a barbarian – will be banished from the city, through the Mountain Gate. The Road of Exiles is decorated with the bones of those who have sought to return.”
Cassia’s anger, hard as it was, shattered against that blow. “You can’t do that.”
Rais’s expression did not alter. “Just as Hellea cannot stone Galliarcans who have committed crimes in their city?”
She could not find an answer to that. And how many times had she watched a crowd gather at the top of Keskor’s square for a hanging, with the thought that she was lucky it was not her? She stared up at the old woman who had delivered the judgement, but her eyes were even less sympathetic. And why should she care? I’m just a girl. A barbarian girl.
I am the Heir to the North.
The pounding at her temples drowned out what Rais said next. She shook her head to clear the noise away. “What?”
“I said, there is one alternative.”
Cassia wanted to ask, but she had learned some bitter lessons over the last few days. Nothing is as it appears. Nobody wants to help you. She set her face as blank as Meredith would have done, and after a moment Rais shrugged nonchalantly.
“You owe a debt of reparation to the Watch. It is clear you cannot afford that payment – you have no home or family here. You are an itinerant storyteller. But you have gained a small reputation. I can vouch for your debt to the Watch.”
“And then I am in debt to you,” Cassia finished, her voice flat. She had been here before. It did not take much to imagine what that debt might involve. Rais was no better than Hetch had been. “I am to be your slave.”
“An ugly word for indebted servitude,” Rais said. “If it helps you to think of it as that, then do so.” He gestured back to the doors. His smile was no longer quite so charming. “You will have a few more hours to think about it.”
The guards loomed either side of her. Cassia felt the drums rise. She turned and strode out of the Court of the Watch to the beat of those drums that nobody else could hear, forcing the guards to hurry to keep up.
I am the Heir to the North.
2
It was evening before the guards returned. The drums had subsided, at last, and Cassia even slept for a while, shifting restlessly on the pallet, wrapped in the tangled cloth of her own belongings. But the problem was still with her when she awoke. It had not lessened or disappeared. When the door opened and the guards beckoned her wordlessly from the cell, she still did not know what she would do.
I could accept it. I could leave by the Mountain Gate. Leave the North behind for good and never return. Leave this land too. There must be room enough in the world for one girl like me. I have been used enough as it is.
But there was much more to consider. There was Malessar, if he still lived. There was Leili, whose home and life had been ruined by Baum’s grand scheme. And there was the dull throbbing at the edge of her senses; the beat that told her something was wrong. It reminded her that as much as Baum had been responsible for the plot, she had brought it to fruition. Her hand had revoked the curse on Caenthell.
I have a debt to Malessar. And to Leili. And to the whole of the North. Is that not enough debt for any one person? Rais has no right to force my hand in such a fashion. Who is he anyway – a commander of the Watch? I cannot waste time with this if I am to help Malessar at all.
That was one decision confirmed before she even realised she had made it. No matter what else might happen, she was committe
d to Malessar’s side. She had to rectify her mistake, if that was possible. Nothing else mattered.
That thought helped stiffen her resolve as the guards escorted her through the darkening courts of the palace. Galliarca’s nobility had appeared in the gardens with the lanterns and the fireflies, and they regarded her with the same arch amusement Rais had turned upon her, as though she was nothing more than a fresh novelty for the Court to enjoy. Had she walked amongst them under different circumstances, she might have looked up at them with awe, overwhelmed by their riches and finery and their sophistication. But now she listened to the regular march of leather upon tiles and built her own robes – armour against the derision of the nobility– upon that sound. She ignored the men and women who lounged on the benches and loitered alongside the slender columns of the colonnades. She led the guards, she thought, just as Gelis must have done when she confronted the king who had abducted her son.
I am the Heir to the North.
But when she reached the Court of the Watch again and paused at the doors, the two guards ushered her onwards. It was unexpected, disconcerting enough that her rough amour slipped and she could not pick up the rhythm again. She was an interloper here; she did not belong.
The guards brought her at length to another garden. Lit braziers cheated the early evening of its chill, and low tables, attended by plain-coated servants, were laid with dishes of meats and fruit. Compared to the other gardens she had passed through, this one was quiet. Aside from the servants there were only half a dozen other men and women here. They lay on couches decorated with rich, woven throws, conversing in low voices. One woman laughed aloud in a contralto that Cassia immediately found irritating.
Rais was at the centre of the little group. He no longer wore his Watch robes; he had changed into a scarlet tunic that emphasised the musculature of his torso and upper arms. He swung lightly to his feet when he saw her enter the garden.
