The Court of Broken Knives

Chapter Nine

I was handed over to the Temple when I was three hours old. I am told that my mother cried, although why she should have done so, I do not know. We are born and bred to it, and whatever comes of us is decreed by fate. I was lucky beyond all things, for the lot I drew was that of High Priestess.

It is a curious thing, when I think of it. It is not the first thing that I remember – that, strange to say, is simply a blurred image of an old woman Temple servant, entirely insignificant to my life or any other’s, who died when I was three or four – but it is the first thing I can hold before me with any meaning, understand all that took place and render the events clearly from my recollection of them. Unwanted girls, girls whose parents cannot afford to keep them, girls who have been promised, girls who should not have been born … they are handed over to the Great Temple, dedicated to Great Tanis Who Rules All Things. At five, each child is taken into a dark room at the back of the Temple, to draw a lot from a silver box. The room is briefly illuminated and the lot examined before being replaced in the box. If it is black or white, it means death by drowning. If green, death by sacrifice. If yellow, the child is dedicated as a priestess of the Temple. If red, the child is acknowledged as the new High Priestess, holy beyond all things. Needless to say, there are a great many black and white lots, but only one red. It had not been drawn for forty years, before it was drawn for me.

You will ask, I suppose, what happens to the High Priestess-that-is, when the red lot is drawn. A simple thing: the High Priestess-that-will-be kills her. There is a great deal of training and suchlike first, of course, for there is a great deal to learn and to know. And five is rather too young, for killing or for learning. But when the High Priestess-that-will-be reaches the age of fifteen, she stabs a blade into the heart of her predecessor and takes her place. It has been fifteen years now, since I drew my lot, and I have not yet seen the red lot drawn. Perhaps it will be drawn tomorrow. Perhaps it will not be drawn for a hundred years, and I will live until I am an old woman, and die quietly, and be without a successor.

The poets sing all the usual things of my divine beauty. As she is described in The Song of the Red Year, the High Priestess Manora had skin like white satin and hair as golden as the dome of the Summer Palace at dawn. The High Priestess Jynine, according to the Book of the Moon, had eyes the colour of emeralds and a face like the bud of a rose. As to myself, my hair is like trees against the evening light; my skin is like rainwater in a garden; my eyes are like the sky after a storm. Which is to say, I have black hair, brown skin and blue eyes. I am tall, a good thing. Caleste, my predecessor, was so short she had to stand on tip-toe to reach the High Altar. I was taller than her as a girl of thirteen.

The day of my dedication was grey and hot. I spent the night before in prayer, fasting. I was not even permitted a drink of water in the heat. At dawn slaves came to bath me, dressed me in a robe of gold and a veil of silver net sewn all over with golden flowers. It was so heavy I could barely see through it; my reflection in the mirror when they showed me was distant and blurred like a figure seen through thick glass. Two acolytes had to hold my arms to lead me where I walked. On my feet I wore shoes of copper, raised up on wooden pads so that I did not touch the ground.

I was sat on a high-backed bronze chair with a curtain drawn around me while the priestesses and guests filed in; I could hear the chatter of voices and then the silence when the Emperor arrived. I sat hidden for a long time while the ceremony went on around me; priestesses chanted in high, sad voices, calling down the blessing of the Lord of Living and Dying upon me. After what seemed half an eternity, the curtain around me was pulled back and Samnel called upon Great Tanis to behold His servant in all her glory. More prayers, more singing, then, finally, slim cool hands lifted the great veil and revealed me to the assembled multitudes. The lords and ladies wore their best clothes, shining red and green and purple and white. So beautiful, they looked.

I looked first for the Emperor, of course, whom I had never seen. He sat at the front in the middle, flanked by his guards, young and striking in his black but disappointingly plain with a fat face. He looked bored, fidgeted with the clasp of his robe. Helase said later that it is because the Emperor must remain a virgin: it is harder for men to remain that way, she said.

More prayers, then Samnel approached me and raised me to my feet. It was strange to see her like that, masked in silver with lapis inlays around her lips and eyes, like the tiles on my bedroom floor. I stood awkwardly in the copper shoes. She helped me across to the High Altar, and two priestesses helped me to kneel before it. I’d been told to keep looking straight ahead, but the one on my right pinched my wrist and I glanced up into pale blue eyes: Helase, laughing at me behind her mask. I hadn’t known, before, that she would manage to get a role in the ceremony.

Samnel’s voice came lisping through the mask. I bowed my head and said the words after her. My voice was very loud. I had been afraid that it would stick in my throat. I was raised up again, a cup placed in my hand. Bitter in my mouth when I drank, salt water mixed with the tang of blood. The faces stared at me, a multitude of faces black and brown and white, bright eyes and golden jewellery. I rose and stood tall before the altar, in my robes and my crown, and I was the High Priestess, the Chosen of God, the Beloved of Great Tanis the Lord of Living and Dying, she who gives light and darkness and life and death and mercy and pain.

Chapter Ten

They would be in Sorlost the next morning.

The last few days had worn their patience, sleeping rough without tents, so close to their destination. Emit had argued with Alxine and Rate, Rate had snapped at Alxine, Marith had wandered along a few paces behind not speaking until Emit swore at him for nothing in particular except being alive and good-looking and not swearing at him first. The last of the bread had gone mouldy. Rate had found a scorpion in his boot.

And it had been the birth night of Amrath, two nights past. That was going to make a man edgy, even if he wasn’t sleeping on stones with nothing to eat but green bread. Emit had made a libation. Alxine had rolled his eyes. Rate had muttered words against ill omen, refused to watch.

‘About a thousand years late for that, don’t you think?’ Emit had muttered back at him. ‘You Chatheans really need to let it go.’

‘Bit hard to let it go, when someone wipes out your entire population.’

‘It was a thousand years ago! And it can’t have been your entire population. ’Cause you’d hardly be sitting here, would you, if it had?’

Marith hadn’t spoken to anyone all night that night. Twitchy. Nasty sad face. Best left alone. But the boy was from the White Isles, Tobias thought, to be fair to him. Biggest celebration of the year, there. Gods, the stories you heard of what went on! He’d be missing it. And it was lonely, being so far from home on celebration nights. Missing his mum especially badly, probably. Deep down the whole damn troop of them knew how that felt.

Being a good Immishman, Tobias had recited the story to himself in the starlight. His mother and his grandmother and everyone in the village had gathered to recite it every year. Light the lamps, stoke the fires, bar the door. It begins with a woman, a princess, a descendant of the old gods, and she lived in a country called Illyr, on the shores of the Bitter Sea, on the edge of the world … Amrath the World Conqueror, the son of Serelethe and … and, well, the gods and His mum alone knew who His father was, but He claimed that His father was a demon, and if any man who ever lived could claim that he’d been fathered by a demon, it was Amrath. By the time He was ten years old, He’d killed a man. By the time He was twenty years old, He’d conquered an empire. By the time He was thirty years old, He’d conquered the world. The greatest, the most terrible of all the Lords of Irlast. Merciless. Ruthless. King of Shadows. King of Dust. King of Death. The whole world feared Amrath. They were right to fear, too, since He was a bastard who killed like other men breathed air. His wife Eltheia was the most beautiful woman living. His armies were the wonder of the world. Whole cities, He ordered burned with a snap of His fingers. Whole kingdoms, He enslaved. And by the time He was forty years old, He was dead and gone without even an unmarked grave.

Not a good night to be out in, then, the anniversary of Amrath’s birth day. Ill-omened. The dark was close around them, the light of their fire was thin and weak. Their feet ached from walking. The ground seemed especially hard and lumpy. Rate discovered wriggling worm things in his water bottle after he’d drunk half of it. Emit laughed until Rate punched him. Marith woke them all up crying in his sleep again. Alxine found two scorpions in his boots.

Ill-omened. Hell, yeah. Tobias had a suspicion that even apart from Marith’s sobbing none of them had got much sleep.

Then the next morning the sun came up with a staggeringly pretty sunrise, and they found a tree full of ripe pink apples just sitting there waiting to be eaten, and a staggeringly pretty ripe pink girl waved at them, and Rate and Emit apologized to each other, and they’d finally been able to come down out of the wilderness into a town, and, glory of all the glories, spend the night in a cheap inn.

Amrath was born and died a thousand years ago. Ill omens could bugger off.

The inn had had hot food and hot water and a copious supply of not entirely undrinkable beer. Done them a world of good, Tobias reflected, watching them tramp along, mildly hung-over, Rate still eulogizing the fact he’d finally had a night in a bed. They seemed more comfortable around each other. Back to being a team. Even Marith: he’d fidgeted and hesitated, looked like he might cry again, refused to join them in favour of going straight up to sleep. Tobias had had to virtually drag him into the common room. But once there he’d relaxed quickly enough, to the point he either hadn’t been bothered or simply hadn’t noticed that Alxine had his hand on his leg. This in turn had cheered Alxine up enormously.

Good lads, Tobias thought. Basically good lads.

Shortly before noon he called a halt and ordered an early lunch. They could press on to the next village, but he’d rather they stop by the roadside, so he could talk to them properly. It was a lovely day, fresh and pleasantly warm after the searing heat of the high desert; they sat on scrubby grass and stretched out comfortably. Tobias shared out the food he had bought that morning, bread, cold meat and fresh golden apricots. The apricots in particular were delicious, sweet, ripe and perfumed, soft as skin.

‘The plan for the next few days is simple,’ Tobias said after a while.

‘That’s good,’ said Emit.

‘We’ll reach Sorlost tomorrow morning. Tonight, we’ll stay in a caravan stop outside the city and be in through the gates shortly after sunup. Then we’ll be lodging in the city itself while we make final preparations. It’s tight discipline from now on again, too, things might start up any time.’

‘What’s the cover story?’ asked Alxine.

‘Good question.’ Tobias drew a breath. This was the bit of the plan he wasn’t sure about, for all kinds of different reasons. Necessary, if anyone asked them what they were doing there and why. Always good to have a reason more than ‘because it’s there’, when you were about to shed blood in it. But it irked him. Uncomfortable, like a stone in his shoe. ‘We’ve got a few things to buy that might raise some eyebrows, if you know what I mean? Being bought by a load of hard men with funny accents. So. The story is that Marith here is a young Immish lordling come to Sorlost to sightsee, flash his cash and generally enjoy himself. We’re his entourage.’ He looked at the men uncomfortably. Knew what they’d say. ‘Got it?’

Marith shifted slightly but said nothing.

‘We’re his bloody servants, you mean?’ said Emit with a growl. ‘I’m not being his bloody servant. I’m not taking orders from a green bloody boy.’

Alxine said hotly: ‘He killed a dragon. More than you’ve ever done.’

‘He’s a green boy. You can follow him around all you like, I’m not.’

Yes, indeed, knew what they’d say. Predictable as bloody cheese worms, this lot. ‘Stop it,’ Tobias said firmly over the top of them. ‘Be quiet, all of you. This is the plan. Skie’s plan. You don’t like it, you can have a whipping for insubordination.’ He looked at Marith, who was sitting on the grass a little away from them, his expression unreadable. The boy’s eyes met his own. Flickered for a moment, like the shadow of a bird’s wings passing before the sun. Tobias looked away.

‘He’s not really dressed for a noble,’ Rate said doubtfully.

Talk about Mr Insightful. Never a truer word spoken by a man with no mouth and no tongue. Tobias sighed. ‘We’ll buy clothes and things when we get to Sorlost. The story will be that we were set on by bandits somewhere on the Immish road. Lost our horses and baggage, had to run to escape. Explains why we need equipment and such.’ Turned to Marith. ‘It’s plain as day you’re high-born, lad. And you’re obviously penniless, else you wouldn’t have ended up with us. So playing at high-born and penniless shouldn’t really be a problem for you, eh?’

Marith burst out laughing.

‘Right then. We’re agreed, yes?’ Rate and Alxine nodded, followed after a moment by Emit. His eyes looked daggers at Marith, who stared blankly back. Emit turned away, spat in the dirt and cursed.

Rate stood up and performed a flourishing bow. ‘Sire,’ he said, doffing an imaginary hat in Marith’s direction, ‘I am at My Lord’s service. Anything he wants, I shall procure him. What does My Lord command? In wine and women I am afraid I am sorely lacking, but I should think I can rustle up a handful of dried goat shit.’

Broke the tension. Marith smiled with rather more amusement than he’d laughed. Even Emit grunted something like he was entertained. Well handled, lad, Tobias thought, looking at Rate. A clever boy there, knew when to play the clown, when to be firm. How to manage grumpy bastards like Emit. He’d only joined the company the last summer past, but he was a key part of them, the others looked to him. I’ll begin training him, Tobias thought. Pity to waste his potential. If he survives this, of course.

Marith, on the other hand … Yes. Well. The boy had a charisma of some kind. More than just his obvious high breeding, though that was part of it. But it went deeper, something in him that you couldn’t put into words. The other men in the squad, even Rate, were men in the squad. Just men. Each with his own foibles and infuriating habits and passable good points if you squinted at them in the dark and ideally after about ten pints, but basically just men. Good lads. Marith was … something else. He’d sat quiet last night, hardly speaking. Nose down in his drink and those big sad eyes. The barmaid had pawed over him, not surprising, really, since the boy was considerably prettier than she was, and he’d ignored her completely. Not because he was shy of her, or not interested in her, he’d given the girl a thorough looking over at first, same as they all had apart from Alxine, but as though she had stopped meaning anything to him. As though nothing meant anything to him. He’d just sat there, in near silence, with that look on his face, far off and sad. And now he was sitting on the grass eating an apricot, legs drawn up before him, looking fresh as new cotton, sweet and young and innocent apart from his eyes.

‘Let’s get on then,’ Tobias said, standing up and wiping the remains of his meal off his hands. ‘We should be outside the gates by this evening.’ The men followed, shouldering their packs. ‘Not him. He’s a lord now. From now on, he doesn’t carry anything, do anything. We do it for him.’ Paused and glared round at them. ‘And no complaining, got it? No more than would be realistic, anyway.’

‘Bloody stinking gods and demons,’ muttered Emit.

‘That’s probably more than is realistic, Emit,’ said Rate.

They arrived in the environs of the city itself in the late afternoon, warm sunlight gleaming on the great bronze walls that loomed before them, perhaps another hour’s swift walk. Unmistakable, even to those travellers who have never before seen them. As long ago as tomorrow, beneath the brazen walls of Sorlost. For the last couple of hours, they had been walking through an increasingly inhabited landscape, prosperous villages, market gardens and caravan stops, joining up with more people and trains of goods.

‘We’ll stop here,’ said Tobias. A caravan inn, large and wealthy and faded, on the edge of a small town that functioned as an entrepôt to Sorlost itself. Cheaper to stop outside the shadow of the city walls; easier too if one arrived towards evening. The great gates of the city were slammed shut at dusk, and no man might come or go until morning. Even at the city’s zenith, when it had bought and sold half the world in its marketplace, the gates had closed every evening with the last rays of the setting sun. The merchants grumbled, but did not dare to ask that they be kept open after dark. The night was not a safe time for the crossing of boundaries, even boundaries made by man. And the walls were so high, and so heavy, who was to say who had made them, when the moonlight shone full upon them, or in the darkness of a night when there was no moon?

They entered the inn through a stone portico giving onto a small courtyard, faded frescos of birds on the walls, well-scrubbed flagstones, a lemon tree in a pot dying quietly in the corner. The smell of spice and bread and beer; laughter from a room opening off to the left, accompanied by the thrum of a lyre and a clapping of hands. A musician, maybe even a troop. Tobias nodded approvingly. Good distraction. People less likely to notice or remember them if there was a good story and a song to look forward to.

He accosted a young woman scurrying past with a tray of clean tea bowls. Cleared his throat and greeted her in three words of his best Literan. She sniggered and he switched hastily to Immish: ‘The innkeep, if you please, miss. We’re in need of rooms.’ She nodded, scurried off and returned with a thin middle-aged man with bright, cold eyes.

‘Rooms, you’ll be needing, is it?’ the man asked him, looking their tattered clothing over with a practised eye. ‘We’re a bit crowded right at this moment, I’ll be telling you.’

Tobias smiled at him, produced a small leather purse. ‘We have gold. Not much else, mind. This here— ’ indicated Marith with a jerk of his head ‘ —this here is Lord Marith Cotas. Not much, he looks at the moment, I grant you – we were waylaid by bandits on the road ten days out from Reneneth. Bastards took almost everything. But he’s rich. And I’m clever. So we’ve still got enough gold on us for rooms.’

The innkeep hesitated. ‘Been rumours of bandits out in the borderlands. Roads are bad at the moment. Not good for trade, so not good for me. But few dare the desert road anyway, now. Your lord’s a fool, travelling with so few men.’

Marith frowned, a dark look in his eyes. Seemed about to say something.

‘My Lord realizes that,’ said Tobias hastily. ‘Maybe best not to rub it in any further, yeah? Regardless: rooms. We’d like rooms and baths and a hot supper.’ He jingled the purse again. ‘Five dhol?’

‘Six,’ the innkeep said in a grudging voice. ‘I’ve got two rooms, but one’s small. Might be best if Your Lordship had that one, I’m afraid, less he wants to share with his servants. I can get baths drawn, though we’ve only got two so you’ll have to take turns. Food served after the evening bell, there’s music tonight too, you’re lucky.’

They were led upstairs. ‘My Lord’s’ room was tiny, an attic gable at the back of the building with a fine view of a scrubby field. The innkeep shifted awkwardly on his feet as he showed Marith in. Barely room for a bed. ‘Can’t move one of my other guests for less than ten,’ the innkeep said shortly. ‘My Lord.’ Tobias, Rate, Alxine and Emit had a larger room, two beds and floor space for two more, overlooking the stable yard. Rate took a big lungful of the stinking air and grinned. ‘Smells like home. What say we dice for the beds?’

The bath was drawn up by the same young woman they’d encountered in the courtyard, clanking up and down the stairs with pails of steaming water till Marith felt vague guilt. She was far too small and slim for heavy lifting. The water was hot and scented with herbs, lemon thyme and basil, sharp and sweet. The soap was lye, but clean. There was even oil for the hair. Marith sank back into the water with a deep sigh. Hadn’t had a bath like this for months. The feel of the hot water was wonderful. The girl smiled shyly at him and offered to stay and wash his hair, but he turned her down, then called her back and asked her to bring him a jug of wine.

His clothes were given a quick clean while he was bathing. His cloak looked wretchedly tatty still, but was a shade closer to its original rich red; his boots and belt, being good leather, had responded well to being polished. The silver buckle of his belt shone. Between a good wash and a proper shave, the cleaner clothes and the wine, he came downstairs feeling more like himself than he had done for a long time. Looked more like himself, too, he realized as he caught sight of his face in a small bronze mirror on one of the landings. If you ignored the heavy scarring to his left hand. The thought made him shiver. His eyes were itching, his skin beginning to burn. Last night had been the first time he’d been in a tavern since Skie had picked him up. Tonight would be worse.

Music and laughter were pouring out of the common room. He took a deep breath and walked in. A large clean room with more faded frescos decorating the walls. Two musicians, a lyre-player and a piper, playing at one side of the room. The girl was sitting already half in the lap of a laughing man in a fine red tunic. The inn the previous night had been small, rural, relatively harmless. This room made him shiver again, despite the warmth of the wine in his head. That had been foolish too. Last night hadn’t gone so badly, considering how it might have ended. Tonight he needed to be more careful. So much more careful. Which was so much more difficult …

Tobias, Emit and Alxine were already sitting at a table, also scrubbed clean.

‘My Lord.’ Rate rose as he entered and indicated a seat beside him with a gloriously overblown flourish.

‘Would Your Lordship care for a drink?’ asked Emit in a particularly servile voice.

Marith felt himself flinch despite himself. ‘Perhaps a cup of wine,’ he said. The others were drinking the pale, sweet beer they favoured in Sorlost. ‘How’s your room?’ he asked, trying to find something to say to them. Strange how playing himself was so much more difficult than playing whoever he’d been for the last few months.

‘Stinks,’ said Emit shortly.

‘Bigger than yours,’ said Rate. ‘As the serving girl has already pointed out.’

Tobias was just rising to order food when a bell sounded, loud and low and sad. The room fell suddenly silent, the musicians stopping playing, voices breaking off in the middle of a word. A long pause, a silence that hung in the air. Everything and everyone very still. Marith felt something between a laugh and a scream well up inside him. A dim confused memory of a silence like this.

On and on, drawn out painfully, tense as knives. Suddenly, finally, the girl laughed loudly, a high-pitched squealing sound. Something broke in the air. The bell tolled again. The drinkers turned back to their drinks, muttering. The musicians started to play.