The Court of Broken Knives
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‘Emmna therelen, mesereth meterelethem
Isthereuneth lei
Isthereuneth hethelenmei lei.
Interethne memestheone memkabest
Sesesmen hethelenmei lei.
In the midst of the desert,
You came to me like water,
Your face gazing, like water.
So quickly my love came, like flowers,’ he said quietly.
‘You what?’ said Alxine with a start and a stare at him. ‘What was that you just said?’
‘Maran Gyste. The opening lines of The Silver Tree. The original Literan, then Daljian’s translation. It just seemed … appropriate.’
‘Oh.’ Alxine shook his head. He thought for a moment. ‘It’s meant to sound dirty, I assume?’
Marith laughed. ‘You should read the later bits.’
The light shimmered around him, the sand like new silver, the air clean as glass. One day, he thought. One day it will all burn, and there’ll be no more living.
When they made camp that evening, Skie ordered proper watches set and kept to. They’d not bothered, previously, so deep in the desert, letting two or three men guard the entire troop. Now there were to be three shifts of five, and a proper guard kept while they marched. No fires lit, not even a small one for a kettle of tea. From this alone, it was clear that they were approaching their destination. The great disadvantage of campaigning in the desert: smoke or fire, even the flash of reflected light on polished metal, would show for miles. Caught out here, such a small body of men would be annihilated. Nowhere to run even if you ran: without water, a man would survive two days, perhaps three; without cover, he would be spotted and hunted down. Sound, too, carried astonishingly – anyone within twenty miles must have heard the dragon attack like a thunderstorm – so they were ordered to march and camp in near silence, communicating by gestures, voices whispering in each other’s ears. It would be a long, dark couple of nights from now on.
It surprised Marith more than he had realized how cheerfully the men accepted the new regime. Where the previous night they had been an unruly huddle, grousing about the size of their portions of beer, singing and joking, then shouting and whooping in the fresh cold water that morning, cheerfully ignoring Skie’s angry shouts that it was potential suicide to swim in a storm channel, now they were silent, disciplined, uncomplaining. He understood for the first time that they truly were hardened soldiers, men who would follow Skie’s command to the letter unthinkingly, men who would kill at Skie’s word.
Strange, it felt, to see that in them. To understand that. The power something held over them, that Skie could lead them to that and they would obey.
They ate a dinner of raw oats soaked in cold water, augmented with scraps of meat and cheese. Neither exactly improved by having got soaking wet and then dried out again. Drank cold water with a few tea leaves floating in it ‘for flavour’. Amazing how quickly you could miss rancid goat and vile beer. There was only a sliver of moon, thin clouds obscuring the stars: they crawled into their tents in silence by feel and memory, blind like birds in the dark. Marith simply lay down to sleep fully dressed rather than struggle out of his clothing. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had plenty of practice sleeping in his clothes.
It took him a long time to fall asleep, staring into the night through the rent in the canvas. He could hear Alxine breathing hoarsely, the sound hypnotic and loud as a heartbeat. Other than that there was silence, an awful empty silence broken by the occasional cry of some night creature, sad and angry and wild. Marith shivered. His skin and eyes itched. When we get there, he thought suddenly, when we get there, I have six iron pennies to spend. There would be things there that would interest him. The thought comforted him, some of the fear drained out of him. He lay awake trying to force himself to sleep before he had to wake up. He would probably be dead in a few days. It would be nice to get some sleep in first.
He must have slept, because suddenly Tobias was in the tent, waking him for the dawn watch. It was utter, pitch black. The stars had disappeared completely, hidden by thicker clouds. Marith flailed around trying to collect himself and scramble out of the tent, tripped over Alxine who cursed him. They crawled out into the cold air, trying to see in the dark. It reminded Marith of playing blind man’s catch as a child, a thick velvet scarf bound over his face. The claustrophobia of seeing nothing, like being dead – he had screamed once, playing it, and his brother had laughed at him. The stars frightened him but he wished they would come back, so that he could see something. Pretend something was there. He put his hand to his pocket, trying to cling to the feeling of security he had felt. Six iron pennies to spend. But it was so dark now. The darkness pressed on his shoulders, smothering him. Calling him. Knowing him. His eyes itched so much that his hands shook and he clawed at the skin of his face.
And then finally he saw the light coming up in the east, the sun rising, the sky changing from black to soft deep blue. In the west the clouds blew over so that stars appeared, the last stars of the early morning, the Maiden, the Dog, the Tree; the Fire Star that burned even in the full light of day. A soft pink sun blossomed in the sky like the delft grass flowers unfolding. He turned his face to it, tears running down his face, because it was beautiful and alive.
After breakfast, they lined up for orders, Skie standing to address them. ‘We’re approaching the city now.’ He had the trick of keeping his voice low but clearly audible, a good voice for battle commands. It was deep, rather pleasant, a nice low bass. Marith thought: I wonder if he can sing. ‘Another two days or so now. As I said last night, from now on it gets serious. The desert’s safe: it’s virtually uninhabited—’
‘Except for a bloody dragon,’ Rate muttered.
‘—not well travelled; anyone coming, we can see them. The desert stops, now. We get to good-sized villages, towns, farmlands. Soldiers on manoeuvres, local watches. People. Thirty armed men aren’t exactly inconspicuous. You know all this.’ Skie nodded at them. ‘You’ve done this kind of thing before. We’ve done this kind of thing before.
‘We’ll be splitting into the different squadrons, taking different routes in. We leave the tents here.’ There was a chorus of half-ironic cheers. ‘If we can come back for them, we will. I’d like to come out the way we came in to pick them up. But the payment includes money for new.
‘If anyone is caught, you’re on your own. You’re a small band of labourers looking for work in the city. Villagers turfed off your land by your local bigwig and thinking the streets of the Golden Empire are still paved with gold. Thieves. Murderers. Wandering bloody musicians for all I care. What matters is that you’re alone, and know nothing about any other groups of men on the roads. Got it?’
The men nodded, rumbled acknowledgement. Skie dismissed them and tramped back to his tent, signalling to the squadron leaders to join him. The men fell to sorting and stowing the gear, organizing small travel packs, engaging in a final buying, selling and bartering of oddments and goods. A large pit was dug in the sand. It was carefully lined with the tent cloths, then the tent poles were carefully arranged above. Skie’s tent and its meagre contents went in last, before another layer of tent cloth and a final covering of sand. A stone was placed on top as a marker.
Marith thought: it looks like a grave.
‘We’ll never come back here to get it, of course,’ said Alxine cheerfully. ‘And even if we do, some bastard will be bound to have moved the stone. But it keeps you hopeful, pretending we’ll be picking them up again anytime soon.’
They began moving out, very small against the great expanse of desert. Heading down into the farmlands, the townlands, the fields and houses, the human world.
Heading down into the great city, the undying, the eternal, the city of dreams, Sorlost the Golden, the most beautiful, the unconquered, the unconquerable, the decaying capital of the decayed remnant of the richest empire the world had ever known.
Marith rubbed his eyes, and sighed, and walked slowly. Tobias walked slowly beside him, watching his face.
Somewhere far off in the distance, something that might have been a hawk screamed.
Chapter Four
The Imperial Palace of the Asekemlene Emperor of the Sekemleth Empire of the eternal city of Sorlost the Golden is clad in white porcelain. Its towers are gilt in silver, its great central dome in gold. Its windows are mage glass, shining like sunrise. Its courtyards are hung with yellow satin, its balconies are carved of gems. Its gates are ivory and whalebone and onyx and red pearl. Its walls enclose lush silent gardens of lilac trees where green flightless birds dart and sing. Tall marble columns create cool loggias, opening onto perfumed lakes to form shaded bathing places of pale sand and dark water, purple irises and silver fish. Lawns run down to tangled bushes with flowers that smell like human skin. Apples and apricots and cimma fruit grow in profusion, perfect and uneaten; when the trees are not in season, servants in black turbans hang brightly painted wooden fruits from their boughs. The fruits were jewelled, once, but these were sold or stolen long ago. It is commonly known as the Summer Palace, though there is no Winter Palace and never has been one. Sorlost is a city without seasons: perhaps some ancient incarnation of the Emperor in the youth of empire once thought it fitting of his status to make a differentiation that is not needed and cannot indeed exist. Perhaps a Winter Palace was planned, once, before time passed too quickly and money was borrowed that could not be repaid and building works were delayed and abandoned and forgotten, in the richest empire the world has ever known.
A beautiful building. Sorrow radiates off it, and corruption, and hope. The centre and symbol of an empire of dreaming, where men live in the dry desert and count their meaning only in gold. An absurdity. Of course an absurdity. An Emperor who rules forever, in a palace built on sand. A thing sacred to eternity, dead and rotted, encrusted with dust. A hive of insects crawling to achieve divinity, the sublime pointlessness of absolute rule. No one cares. No one wonders. Time ceases. Dust settles. The Empire and the Emperor and their servants go on.
This is Sorlost, the eternal, the Golden City. The most beautiful, the first, the last. The undying. The unconquered. The unconquerable.
The mummified heart of an empire of dust and desert villages, half forgotten by half the world.
In a small room at the top of one of the silver towers, two men were talking. The room was furnished in green and silver, small round windows giving a view of the whole sprawling city beneath. The pale evening sky already lit with the first stars. In the west the sky would be fading crimson. Such melancholy! And always a perilous time, this borderline between the realms of life and death. The younger of the two men shivered despite the heat. A rational man, but he hated the dusk. A bell tolled, the room sat still and tense, then the bell tolled again. Night comes, he thought. We survive. The room seemed immediately darker. Shadows falling in the corners, twisting on the green-grey walls.
On one wall, a map caught the lamplight, the world picked out in a mosaic of tiny gems. The Sekemleth Empire gold and yellow diamonds. Immish looming over them to the east, its borders shiny bright. Allene to the south smiling peacefully. Chathe and Theme squatting west and north. Immier a sad empty whiteness, Ith in shadow, the Wastes done in floor scrapings, Illyr carefully hidden behind a lamp sconce. The rich terrifying lumps of the White Isles at the far eastern edge glaring over at them all.
The younger man looked at the map. Shivered again. Looked away.
A joke, that this room was where they were meeting. That damned map staring at them.
‘A cup of wine?’ the older man asked him. Without waiting for an answer, he poured pale wine from a crystal bottle into two porcelain cups. He was pale like the wine and dressed in silk. His hair was grey and receding, thin curls clinging to the sides of his head; his eyes pouched and tired, his nose long and broad. His hands were delicate, small in proportion to his wide body, bitten fingertips above several large old rings. His hands shook slightly as he placed the bottle back on the table.
The younger man was dark-skinned and slender, his hair long and black, his eyes brown. He took a small sip from his cup. ‘It’s an excellent wine,’ he said.
‘You think so? I personally find it a little dry. It’s fifty years old, the estate no longer produces, I’m afraid. The cask was originally broached for the Emperor’s birthday, but he didn’t like it. Bad taste, I’d say. But what does one expect from a man brought up by fishmongers?’
‘That his adviser should have corrected his tastes better?’
‘How can they? He knows everything about taste, having such a superb knowledge of all possible varieties of dried fish.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Very witty. Let’s assume I’ve now made a pointed suggestive response. So can we just come to the point, please, Tam?’
The older man, Tamlath Rhyl, Lord of the Far Waters, Dweller in the House of the Sun in Shadow, Nithque of the Ever Living Emperor and the Undying City, the Emperor’s True Counsellor and Friend, smiled blandly. ‘There’s always a point, Orhan. If you think about it.’ He pushed his cup aside and spread his hands on the table, rings glittering. ‘Very well, then. You are of course quite correct, I did not ask you here simply to compare tasting notes. Or indeed to discuss the failings of the current incarnation of His Eternal Eminence, oenologically or otherwise. Ten years, I’ve held this post. Ten years! And now March Verneth is dripping poison in the Emperor’s ear. We can’t wait, Orhan. We need to make it happen now.’
The younger man, Orhan Emmereth, Lord of the Rising Sun, Dweller in the House of the East, the Emperor’s True Counsellor and Friend, sighed. ‘We’ve been over this, Tam. We can’t make it happen any quicker. It’s not exactly easy as it is.’
‘If March persuades the Emperor to dismiss me—’
‘If March persuades the Emperor to dismiss you, it hardly matters. We’ll just reappoint you afterwards.’
‘March—’
‘March is an irrelevance.’ The younger man, Orhan Emmereth, Lord of the Rising Sun, thought: Your post is an irrelevance. We’re all irrelevant. That’s why we’re doing this. You still don’t see that, do you? He tried to keep his irritation out of his voice. ‘The Immish have raised another troop levy. Another five thousand men. Who gets to hold your titles is of no concern if the city’s burning.’ You haven’t managed to persuade anyone in the palace to do anything except laugh, he thought. Your great power and authority as Nithque! So it hardly matters whether you hold on to your power or not. As I would have thought was obvious. A wise man who’s ignored is about as effective as an idiot who’s listened to.
‘All the more reason to act more quickly, then,’ said Tam waspishly.
‘Quickly, yes. Too quickly, no. The last thing we want is chaos.’
Tam sipped his wine. ‘Sometimes I still wonder whether this is even real, Orhan. Anything more than your mind looking for excitement and a desire for something to interest you since Darath … well … Oh, don’t frown like that! Twenty years, the Long Peace has held. Why would the Immish be looking to cause trouble now? And even if they are, why should it be directed at us?’ His eyes flicked to the map on the wall. ‘Surely one of their northern borders – Theme, say, or Cen Andae.’
Orhan sighed. Because they can. Because they see no reason not to. Because they’ve finally looked at the graveyard of our Empire with open eyes. Because they’re fools and madmen and like the art of war. Because their children go hungry and we piss gold and jewels into the dust.
‘Twenty thousand troops, now, they’ve raised in two years … Don’t you feel it, Tam?’ he said after a moment. ‘A new mood coming? You hear the same things I do. A fight in Grey Square between apprentice boys and Immish caravan guards, four men killed. The Immish were mocking us, the apprentice boys said. Mocking our fidelity to the God. Three of our merchants stoned to death in Alborn, accused of false trade.’
‘And a firewine drunk stood in the centre of the Court of the Fountain yesterday and proclaimed himself the true incarnation of the Emperor, before his drinking companion knifed him in the heart. These things happen, Orhan. You’re oversensitive.’
‘God’s knives, Tam, it’s a bit late to start questioning things now, isn’t it?’
Tam smiled again. ‘Oh, I’m not questioning anything, Orhan. Just suggesting you look at your own motives for what you’re doing, and why.’ He drained his cup. ‘Another drink? As I said, fifty years old and the estate no longer produces. A shame to waste it.’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘You’re sure? Yes? You refuse to move the timetable up, then? Even by a few days?’
Orhan sighed again. ‘A few days. Just a few days. No more.’
‘Now you sound like a fish merchant. Shall we start haggling over the price again?’ Tam refilled both their cups anyway and sipped from his. ‘You always look so morally aggrieved, Orhan. This was your idea, remember, not mine. You only brought me in to hide your own squeamishness. Someone else to blame.’ He bent forward, drawing his head closer to Orhan. Old man smell on his breath beneath the wine. Sour and fat. ‘I’ll tell you something, Orhan. Something I know. Something the Emperor doesn’t. You’re quite right. The Immish are planning something.’ A smile and a wink, the small chewed hands moving. ‘Does that make you feel any better about it all?’
Orhan started. ‘What?’
‘Oh, just March. Irrelevance that he is. He’s had … meetings. With someone who I have it on very good authority is a close agent of the Immish High Council. Money has been exchanged. Promises of aid. He wants more than my role as Nithque, I should think. The Immish want more than to give it to him, I should also think.’
‘What authority? You have proof?’
The small hands moved again. Lamplight flashed on the rings. Thin curls bobbed as the old man’s head shifted. ‘My dear Orhan, I know the man is an agent of the Immish High Council because he’s been paying me for years as such. Ah, don’t look so shocked! He could have been paying you too, if you’d let yourself be open to such things. As you know perfectly well. He’s probably been paying March for years too. But recently he started paying him a lot more.’
Orhan looked at him. Angry. Humiliated. All this dancing around, even though they were on the same side, seeking the same ends. He frowned and drank his wine. ‘A week, then. We’ll bring the timetable forward by one week. No more.’
‘I knew you’d see sense.’
‘If you’d started this conversation telling me that …’
Tam drained his cup and rose. Pale silk swirled around him, making the lamp flicker, as though a moth had flown into its flames. ‘But that wouldn’t have been how we do this, would it, Orhan? You had to decide for yourself, not because I asked you to. It’s your idea, remember, not mine. What I know or don’t know is … irrelevant.’
‘I am aware it’s my idea, Tam, thank you.’ Impossible to forget, indeed. Might as well engrave it in letters of fire over his bed. Orhan sipped his wine. It was too dry, now he’d had a couple of cups of it. Tam could probably have chosen better, if he didn’t believe quite so much in thrift.
‘I’ll be leaving then. You’re going to March’s party, I assume?’
‘It seems a good idea, in the circumstances.’ Though he’d rather not. But he’d better, now. ‘Are you?’
Tam sniffed. ‘I wasn’t invited. March is so pathetically crude one could almost laugh. Watch out for Immish agents and don’t eat anything someone else hasn’t eaten first. Keep alert to things. Signs and portents, since you seem so keen on them. Firewine drunks. Dreams. And do give March my regards.’ He pushed open the door and went out in a rustle of cloth. ‘Enjoy yourself.’
Hot, scented air, spices and lilac flowers. A fluttering of wings as a flock of ferfews darted overhead, flashing brilliant green wings. White stone gleamed in the moonlight. A woman laughing in a tinkle of bells.
Orhan walked quickly, his guards following him with drawn knives. Amlis, red and sandy; Sterne, dark-skinned and tall with vivid blue eyes. Amlis had obviously passed the time at the palace cajoling the kitchen maids: his breath smelled of raw onions and there was a grease stain on his shirt. House Emmereth. Such style. Such sophistication. Such beauty and elegance in a city of dreams.
He should probably change himself, really, put on something a bit more elaborate, wash off the dust. But he really couldn’t be bothered. The streets were full of dust anyway. He’d only get dirty again.
In the Court of the Fountain, two young men were fighting. A handful of spectators leaned against the wide marble bowl of the fountain, cheering on one or the other. A street seller wandered among them, holding out a tray of preserved lemons. Orhan stopped to watch. The spectators seemed to favour the taller of the two men: he was certainly the better looking, his skin smooth black, his hair deep gold, shining in the torchlight. His opponent was his opposite, fair skin and dark hair, shorter and stockier. Both were dressed in fine white silks. They were real street blades, then, not simply bored young men quarrelling. White was the colour men wore when they were serious about fighting. It showed up every scratch of the knife.
The dark-haired man made a powerful lunge and knocked the golden-haired man backwards. Blood gushed up from golden-hair’s right leg and the audience groaned. With a curse, he went down on one knee for a moment, then rallied and lashed out at dark-hair. Dark-hair skittered back out of reach, sending several spectators running. He was the stronger and technically the better fighter. Golden-hair had more grace and flair, a more elegant turn of his body. But golden-hair was more likely to die. Obviously limping now, his face pained.
Dark-hair lunged again and again golden-hair stumbled backwards. He was panting, sweating heavily. Those watching began to mutter. Disappointed. They obviously wanted golden-hair to win. Golden-hair stepped back several paces, trying to give himself room to recover and breathe. Dark-hair pressed forward, sensing his opponent’s weakness and growing fear. Knife blades crashed heavily into each other as the two men closed again. They grappled together for a long moment, then with a cry dark-hair broke backwards as golden-hair somehow managed to twist sideways and strike out hard with his left fist. A cheer rang out from the audience. Golden-hair seemed to rally at the sound and brought his knife down, slicing at dark-hair’s arm. The audience cheered again as dark-hair stumbled. Blood was streaming down from his elbow to his wrist and he struggled to raise his own blade. Grinning, golden-hair struck again. More blood spurted up, not just a scratch wound but brilliant inner blood. Heart blood. Dark-hair muttered something and retreated backwards, then roared desperately and flung himself at golden-hair. The audience shouted and clapped as the two tussled together, grunting, panting. Both filthy with blood and grime. There was blood on the ground, making the stone slippery. If either fell, it would be fatal. Not an elegant fight, now. They were too close even for knife work, they wrestled, trying to break the other’s grip and set him off balance. Their feet scuffled and sent up the dust.
Suddenly there was a roar and dark-hair reeled backwards, his face contorted in pain. Golden-hair leapt on him, his knife flashing, stabbing out and down. The blade bit home into the soft hollow in the throat where the pulse beats. Blood sprayed up. Dark-hair swayed on his feet, his face astonished. Crashed to the ground and lay still.