by Sarah Ash
Propping himself against a poplar trunk, he took out his orders from his jacket and re-read them.
‘Report to me on progress at the Sanctuary Quarry. Marcien is the Commanderie officer in charge. Assess the situation. We need more stone for the Fortress. Do they need more Sanctuarees?’
A junior officer could have carried out this mission equally competently. So there must be a reason why Girim wanted Captain Korentan out of Bel’Esstar today.
In the distance the mountains that divided Allegonde from verdant Tourmalise shimmered in a blue haze of heat.
Inscribed below the written orders was a map; when he looked at the site of the Quarry, it seemed more close to Tourmalise than Allegonde. Girim could have elected to build his Fortress from Allegondan granite. This insistence on costly red stone could be seen as further proof of a disordered mind – or as an act of ultimate devotion to the Faith.
It was past midday when Acir reached the shade of the mountains. Glad of the fresher air, he stopped again to check his map.
Suddenly the ground rocked as a dull thud reverberated through the air. Choughs rose up in a black cloud, circling and cawing in panic.
His startled horse whinnied and shied. He pulled hard on the reins, stroking the brown head and murmuring reassuringly.
An explosion – deep within the mountain.
As he rode on up the road, he saw indisputable evidence of quarrying: traces of fine red dust powdered the bushes and brambles.
A little further on he had to pull his horse in to the side of the road to make way for a cart drawn by a team of oxen, laden with blocks of fresh-quarried stone, heading down to the Dniera and the stone barges.
Around the next bend, the road suddenly opened up and Acir found himself gazing at a vast excavation in the mountainside, a raw, red gash.
Here everything was clogged with red dust; the road, the few stunted trees, the rocks. In this barren hollow, men were working, tiny as ants against the sides of the cavernous bowl that had been hacked out of the hill.
‘Good day to you, confrère.’
A Guerrior approached Acir, striking his hand to his heart in salute.
Acir returned the salute.
‘Where is Captain Marcien? I’ve come from the Grand Maistre with new instructions.’
‘I’ll take you to him. Follow me.’
Clouds of choking dust blew into their faces as they entered the quarry.
‘We’ve been blasting a new tunnel,’ said the Guerrior, taking out a kerchief to cover his nose and mouth.
‘Blasting?’ Acir wiped the dust from his watering eyes. ‘Do you use explosive charges often?’
‘The best stone is in the heart of the mountain. We have to go in deep.’
Acir frowned. ‘Into Tourmalise?’
A look of suspicion flashed across the Guerrior’s face.
‘Have there been complaints?’
They had reached a wooden shack tucked under an overhang. The Guerrior gestured to Acir to dismount and took his horse’s reins.
An officer came storming out. He was caked in stone dust; even his beard and eyebrows were thick with red powder.
‘Who the deuce are –’ He stopped, seeing Acir’s badge of office. ‘Ah, Captain. Welcome.’ His eyes, startlingly green amidst the dust, belied the words of welcome, staring at Acir with overt hostility.
Acir began to relay the Grand Maistre’s message. Before he had finished, Marcien erupted.
‘More stone! Tell him we need more workers. More Sanctuarees. There’s been sickness with the heat. Bad water.’
‘Heat sickness?’ Acir said, suddenly alert. ‘Let me see them. I served in the desert. I have some expertise in these matters –’
“That won’t be possible,’ Marcien said hurriedly.
Now Acir was certain: Marcien was hiding something.
‘Take me to them.’
‘You’ve come at a most inopportune time.’
‘I’ll be making a full report, Marcien. If you have been concealing anything from the Commanderie –’
‘Confound you and your report.’ Marcien glared at him. ‘You pen-pushers – what do you know about the risks of quarrying stone?’
He led Acir towards the entrance to a cave.
In the dank, cool air, he saw forms lying on the cave floor, human forms covered in bloodstained sacking.
Bodies.
Marcien flicked back the sacking from the nearest, watching Acir’s face. He forced himself to show no emotion; he sensed that Marcien wanted to shock him – and yet it was hard not to feel pity at the sight of the twisted, crushed corpse.
‘How?’ he asked.
‘Rockfall. We were blasting deeper into the mountain and the tunnel caved in.’
‘Any survivors?’
‘One. He’s so badly injured he won’t last the night.’
‘I’ll need a list of the names of the dead to take back to Bel’Esstar. For the records.’
‘You and your damned Commanderie records. I need fresh men. Fresh supplies. Tell Girim that. Then he’ll get more stone.’ Marcien went out of the cave towards the shack.
Acir knelt down and gently replaced the sacking over the dead Sanctuaree, murmuring the Obsequy from the Requiem Canticles. There was already a buzz of flies at the cave entrance; he feared this perfunctory farewell would be the only form of funeral rites granted to the dead Sanctuarees.
‘Here’s your list.’ Marcien thrust a paper in front of Acir’s face. Acir glanced down the list of numbers and names beside them.
‘All Sanctuarees.’
‘The Sanctuarees are here to work the stone – and we’re here to see that they get on with it.’
Acir swung around to face him.
‘I take exception to your attitude, confrère. Men cannot work in these inhuman conditions!’
‘Oh, but they can – and they do.’ Marcien smiled at him, an openly provocative smile, baring his teeth.
‘You’ll have no workforce left if you make them labour through the heat of midday – and keep them in the tunnels when you’re blasting.’
‘You make my heart bleed,’ Marcien was jeering at him. ‘Have you forgotten who these men are? Convicted criminals. Rebels. They’d slit our throats and make off across the border if we didn’t watch them night and day.’
‘But these names!’ Acir struck the sheet with his hand. ‘These men were not murderers. They were intellectuals. Musicians. Poets.’
‘Intellectuals?’ Marcien spat into the dust. ‘Word-twisters. Rabble-rousers. And they make cursed useless stoneworkers, I can tell you.’
‘Have you no sense of compassion?’
‘Compassion? This is a place of correction, not a convent.’
Furious, Acir turned away and began to retrace his steps; he could not trust himself not to strike Marcien down.
‘For a Guerrior you seem uncommonly sympathetic to these revolutionaries.’ Marcien called after him. ‘Where do your allegiances lie, Korentan?’
‘Bring in the next witness!’
Khassian stared about him in dismay. Guerriors lined the walls of the courtroom. High up in the public gallery he caught sight – behind the ranks of Guerriors – of anxious faces peering down: wives, mothers, children.
Three men stood chained together before a bench at which a panel of three judges sat in their indigo robes and wide-brimmed hats of office.
‘Is your name Amaru Khassian?’ said one of the judges.
‘It is. But –’
‘Bring him forward.’
‘Is this a trial? Who is being tried?’ Khassian cried as his guards caught hold of him by the arms and hustled him to the front of the court.
‘Amaru Khassian. Do you recognise these men?’
They were gaunt. Their sunken eyes seemed to burn with fever, and their faces showed the livid marks of brutal treatment: swollen mouths, half-healed cuts and weeping sores. But changed as they were, he knew them. They were his musicians.
Wordlessly he begged them to let him know if he should identify them – or plead ignorance. But they would not meet his eyes.
‘Do you know these men?’ repeated the judge. ‘Did you employ them?’
‘Yes,’ Khassian said miserably.
‘Their names, please. And former occupations.’
‘Saturnin – bass. Teriel – hautboy. Ignace – viola d’amore,’ he whispered.
‘Thank you.’
‘Shall we take him back to the Sanctuary?’ asked one of the guards.
‘No. The Grand Maistre has specifically requested that he should be present throughout the proceedings.’
The judge turned back to the three musicians.
‘Now that you have been formally identified, we shall proceed. You have been charged with conspiring to assassinate an officer of the Commanderie. How do you plead?’
There was silence.
‘This is your chance to defend yourselves.’
Still the accused remained silent.
‘We have many witnesses who saw you deliberately cut through the rope holding the masonry when an officer of the Commanderie was passing beneath. What have you to say in your defence?’
Saturnin, the bass, cleared his throat.
‘We do not recognise this as a court of justice.’ His words were slurred; Khassian saw that he moved his bruised jaw with difficulty. ‘This is a travesty of a fair trial. We demand a civil hearing – with a lawyer to defend us against these accusations.’
‘Your protestations do not alter the facts of the case. You plotted to kill one of our officers. And for that, the Grand Maistre demands the ultimate penalty – death.’
‘No!‘cried Khassian, straining forward. His guards caught hold of him and pulled him back.
‘It is the sentence of this court that you be taken from here to a place of execution and hung by the neck until you are dead. Let your deaths be a warning to all those who seek to conspire against the Commanderie.’
There was a cry from the public gallery, a woman’s voice, harsh and sobbing. Khassian thought he caught sight of her, arms outstretched over the balcony – and then the Guerriors closed in and in the ensuing pandemonium, he found himself being dragged away by his guards.
‘Saturnin!’ he shouted. ‘I didn’t know, I didn’t –’
‘Fight on, Amaru!’ cried the bass. ‘Don’t let them defeat you! Don’t –’
Khassian did not hear his last words as his guards pushed him back into the passageway that led beneath the court.
Acir Korentan stopped in a vineyard to rest and water his horse. He felt weary and dispirited by what he had seen; the raw, red gash in the mountainside was an atrocity, an Allegondan rape of Tourmalise’s resources. But worse still was this wanton squandering of the miners’ lives.
Acir took the remains of the rations he had brought with him from his saddle bag: unleavened bread, olives, cheese… but after a mouthful or two he found he was not hungry.
He lay back beside the young vines, gazing up at the brilliant stars, his eyelids slowly closing…
He walks alone through the verdant vineyard in the last light of the setting sun. The fiery sky is streaked with flame and gold: thunderclouds are massing overhead.
The new grapes on the vine tremble in the rising stormwind which comes gusting through the vineyard. It is growing dark.
Acir is gripped with a sudden and inexplicable sense of terror.
‘Acir.’
A man stands between the young vines. A hood covers his face, shadowing the features. How does he know Acir by name? The voice, though low, is sweet as the taste of new wine on the tongue, sweet and strong.
‘I have a gift for you, Acir.’
‘A gift?’
The hooded stranger draws from the breast of his robe a green spray and offers it to Acir.
He slowly stretches out his hands to take the spray – and as his fingers close around the branch, he sees the drops of living blood on the fresh leaves from the torn and lacerated hands of the stranger, red as new wine.
The spray is a rose branch, prickled with vicious thorns that pierce deep into his own flesh. His blood begins to trickle, mingling with the blood of the stranger.
‘Ahh… it burns !’ Seared by the fiery pain. Acir looks up into the shadowed face.
‘What do you want of me?’ His whispered question is almost drowned in a distant grumble of thunder.
For answer, the stranger beckons him towards the vines. In the stormlight, Acir sees the new grapes have shrivelled, the green leaves have turned dry and brown.
‘They are dying.’ The stranger begins to walk away into the darkness of the oncoming storm. ‘Save them. Save my harvest, Acir.’
‘What must I do to save them? Tell me what I must do!’
The stranger turns and looks back and in the sudden pale brilliance of lightning, Acir sees his face.
‘Now do you know me?’
Acir awoke with a start, heart pounding with exhilaration. The young vine leaves rustled softly, stirred not by the storm wind but a faint, warm breeze. Overhead the stars glittered in a cloudless sky.
He knew it had only been a dream – and yet such a vivid dream that he gazed down at his hands in the starlight, half-expecting to see the bleeding thorn-scratches where the burning blood of the Poet-Prophet had mingled with his own.
It was dawn by the time Acir reached Bel’Esstar.
Even as he approached the city, he sensed that something was wrong.
Three bodies swung slowly from the gallows on Pasperdu Hill. A guard of four Guerriors was stationed beneath the gallows.
Acir dismounted and strode over to the guard.
‘What’s happened? Who were these men? Why were they hanged?’
‘Conspirators, Captain. Revolutionaries. They tried to murder an officer of the Commanderie.’
Acir gazed up at the bodies. Sacks had been tied over their heads. But he knew only too well who they were. Girim had deliberately disregarded his recommendations. He had made an example of the musicians.
‘Cut them down.’
‘But our orders were to –’
‘Your orders have changed. Cut them down. And let their families have the bodies for burial.’
When the Guerrior still stood there, hesitating, Acir climbed up on on the platform and began to set about the grim task. Reluctantly, the four Guerriors clambered up to help him.
When all three bodies were laid out beneath the gallows, Acir called the Guerriors together.
‘If anyone questions what you have done today, tell them that you were ordered to do it by Captain Korentan.’
As he turned to go back to his horse, he thought he glimpsed shadowy figures, women watching, waiting in a passageway, supporting each other, clinging to each other for comfort.
CHAPTER 21
‘Wake up.’
The darkened Meditation cell was suddenly blindingly bright with lantern-light. Dazzled, Khassian thrust up one arm to shield his eyes.
‘Wh-what do you want?’ He tried to conceal the tremor in his voice as grey-clad Guerriors threw a hood over his face and bundled him towards the open cell door. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘No questions. Just do as you are told.’
The voice of the commanding officer was unfamiliar. Khassian began to panic. They were going to execute him.
‘But why now? I demand to know wh—’
‘No questions,’ repeated the officer curtly.
A closed carriage was waiting in the courtyard below; Khassian was pushed inside and the carriage started off. Blind, half-stifled by the thick muffling hood, he began to conjure terrifying fantasies.
Surely if they were going to execute him, they would have hung him yesterday with Saturnin, Ignace and Teriel, as an example to the other Sanctuarees?
Or was this an act of assassination to be carried out in secret, his body thrown ignominiously in a pit, never to be found? Was his fate to become just another of the many dis
sidents who had simply disappeared?
The carriage slowed to a halt and the Guerriors pulled him out into the fresh air. Into another building, forced to stumble up a winding flight of stairs, along another endless corridor.
A door clicked quietly shut. The hood was untied and removed from his head.
Khassian opened his eyes to see a servitor clad in the grey and white livery of the Prince’s household bowing before him.
‘Your bath is ready, Illustre. Let me help you off with your clothes.’
Khassian took an unsteady step backwards.
‘Is this some kind of a joke?’
‘Not in the least, Illustre. I am instructed by His Altesse the Prince, to assist you with your toilette.’
Khassian gazed around him. The restrained elegance of the chamber, the walls painted cloud-grey, embellished with delicate plaster mouldings in cream and gilt, the pale polished wood of the floor… all was in the refined style favoured by Ilsevir.
‘Then I’m dreaming.’
Behind a blue and white painted screen, a porcelain hip bath stood, a gentle steam arising from its herb-strewn waters. A hot bath!
The servitor’s hands were already deftly removing the stained Sanctuary tunic from Khassian’s shoulders. He stood and let the servitor strip away the rest of the filthy garments and help him into the bath. A long sigh of contentment escaped him as the water rose around him and he lay back, closing his eyes.
He would not think of anything but the bliss of the hot water and the astringent sting of the wash-herbs. The servitor soaped his matted hair, fingers expertly scrubbing the engrained dirt from his skin.
Later, wrapped in soft towels, Khassian sat before a mirror whilst the servitor shaved away the ragged beard and trimmed the tangles from his hair.
A soft tap at the door announced the arrival of a second servitor bearing a tray of breakfast: Khassian’s starved stomach contracted painfully at the warm aroma of fresh-baked butter-rolls and quince marmalade, and hot, fragrant mocha. His favourite breakfast – Ilsevir must have remembered.
