Dark Heart (46 page)

‘Any questions?’ he asked those still at the table as the girl stood amid the well-trimmed beards and elaborate frocks. ‘Just to make it even clearer, would the Umerta family members stand either side of Lenares, please?’

There could be no doubt, even for one as sceptical as Conal knew himself to be. He wanted the Destroyer to be wrong, wanted to see him humiliated. But he was clever, two thousand years clever. The faces gathered against the gold-leafed wall were all of the same stock. Lenares, whatever her protestations, was one of them.

The Destroyer stood, brushing away the remnants of his meal. ‘Lenares, you’re from the south, are you not?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, her face pale. She had said little since arriving here, obsessed, no doubt, by trying to work this out using her system of numbers. If that wasn’t also a sham. Perhaps the girl was afraid of being exposed as an opportunist.

‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘Lenares the Cosmographer, of Talamaq. I am an Amaqi.’

‘And are Duon and the man who calls himself Dryman also Amaqi?’

‘Yes, but they are from southern areas.’

‘You are trying to steer me away from the inevitable conclusion to these questions,’ the Destroyer said. ‘That is not like you, Lenares. Are there others in Talamaq with pale hair and skin?’

‘No,’ Lenares replied. ‘Mahudia, my mother, said I was special.’

‘She’s not your real mother though, is she?’

‘She was the only real mother I ever had.’

‘But not your birth mother.’

Lenares hung her head. ‘No. I cannot remember my birth mother.’

‘A serious admission for one such as yourself, who remembers everything. Now, can you explain why you look almost exactly like the portrait just above your head?’

It was a small picture, insignificant enough amongst a wall as grand as this was to escape attention, of a girl with the same eyes, mouth, jaw, complexion—the same everything as Lenares bar the hair, and that was only a matter of style, not colour.

The Destroyer turned to Martje. ‘I assume the girl in the portrait is Cylene?’

‘No,’ the woman said serenely. ‘That is a picture of me at her age.’

‘And do you have a portrait of your errant daughter?’ asked the Destroyer undeterred. ‘One, perhaps, that might recently have been taken down from the wall because of the shame she has brought this house?’

‘Mikal, go and fetch your sister’s painting,’ Martje said. ‘You’ll find it in my room.’

‘Sitting beside your bed, no doubt much wept over.’ Seeing her surprised look, he went on: ‘You’d be surprised how many similar cases one comes across if one lives long enough. While your son fetches the final piece of compelling evidence, let me see if I can fill in the remaining blank spaces. You were married to a Fisher Coast man who disgraced himself in some way. Usually in these situations he is a drunkard, a gambler or a philanderer, but not always. Whatever the reason, he runs down the family fortune. Then one or more of the children go missing, their loss usually attributed by the father to an accident, but in reality they are sold as slaves to fund whatever vile habit that has cost the man his soul. I assume your husband is no longer with you?’

‘He is not,’ she said. ‘And it was for none of those reasons I parted with him. Had he been merely a drunkard or those other things you mentioned, I would have remained with him.’ Her face pinched in even more tightly than usual.

‘I am sorry to hear this,’ the Destroyer said, with a catch in his voice as if he genuinely cared for the people he was destroying. ‘There is a fourth common reason, but I did not mention it for reasons of shame and honour.’

The woman’s head bowed. ‘That is the reason,’ she said.

This brought a grunt from him. ‘Did you kill him?’

The answer, when it came, was barely audible. ‘Yes. With the help of my daughters.’

The admission occasioned whispering from daughters and sons alike.

‘But I am right in guessing that about twelve years ago, give or take a year or two, one of your daughters went missing?’

‘Died. She died. Cylene’s twin.’

‘Put it together,’ the Destroyer said quietly. ‘You did not see your daughter’s body after she died, did you?’

‘She was taken by the sea; she walked too close to the crumbling cliffs.’ A tear leaked from her left eye.

‘And your husband came home overflowing with grief, claiming he saw her fall, blaming himself. They always do. He tried to rescue her, which explained the scratches on his arms, yes?’

‘He said she fell.’ Martje looked from face to face. ‘My daughter, she fell. An accident. We could not find the body.’

‘You know there was no accident. There never is. Your husband rid himself of someone about to reveal his dark secret, and made a profit into the bargain. No accident, Martje. What was her name?’

‘Merla.’ The words came out between deep gasps. ‘We called her Merla after her grandmother, who was also a twin.’

The boy sent on the errand returned and placed the picture in the Destroyer’s hand. He looked at it a moment, then walked over to a white-faced Lenares.

‘Here, Merla,’ he said. ‘Here’s a picture of your twin sister.’

He smiled at her, one corner of his mouth curling up in a most cruel fashion.

‘I can guarantee your numbers never told you this was coming,’ he said.

‘The only thing left to determine is whether the wife aided the husband.’

‘Surely not,’ Stella said.

‘In significantly more than half the cases reported by my factors, the mother and father colluded in the death or sale of the child. The mother agrees to cover the shame that would otherwise accrue. And in most of these cases, one or the other spouse meets with an unfortunate accident in the months or years following, to ensure the secret is kept.’

‘I don’t know why I’m listening to you.’

Stella drew even further away from the man, as though afraid of being burned by his evil. For a while the chirp of crickets was the only sound that crossed the courtyard. The bench upon which the two immortals sat creaked a little as Heredrew changed position.

‘They all think they are being so clever, that their stories will be believed because they’ve truly thought it through. Oh, Stella, in order to truly see the black places in the abyss of human depravity all one has to do is to live long enough.’

He sighed. ‘I know that this afternoon’s events have convinced you I am every bit as evil as you thought I was. I’ll not gloss over what I did, nor will I pretend to be sorry or say I won’t do it again. But I did it in the light, in order to prevent lawlessness. These people do it in the darkness, and kill each other to prevent light being shone on their actions.’

‘Finding a darker shade of black doesn’t make you white.’

He nodded. ‘True. I lost my innocence the day the Most High convinced me to accept the Fire of Life before I felt I was ready. I was three years of age. When did you lose yours, Stella? When you fled your village, leaving your mother and father to care for your drunkard brother and believing you dead? When you ran from your company and delivered yourself into Deorc’s hands? Or when you tried to trick me into believing he had betrayed me? Ah, that was a marvellous piece of deception, worthy of a dark lord. When I saw you holding those images in your head, all lies, in order to convince me Deorc had used you, I knew I had found a soul mate. Pure, sweet Stella. You should have seen your face as I punished him. Do you remember begging me to stop? Do you still suffer guilt?’

He leaned closer, until his nose almost touched her stricken face.

‘You should,’ he said. ‘I do.’

Robal tried to sleep but could not. Lying in a large, expensively furnished room on his own, he found himself unsettled, missing the small noises made by sleeping companions on the road. More importantly, he could not hear her; could not ascertain beyond doubt that she was safe, that she had not yet succumbed.

So now he walked the marble halls of this place in the dim light of turned-down lamps, idly examining tapestries and sculptures, his mind wandering.
Where did the builders get the marble from? Why does she continue to allow the Destroyer to remain among us? Who would have thought there was so much money in horses? Has he had her yet?

Robal knew himself to be a man of action not of vision. He’d had his moment: he could have drunk an immortal’s blood, but had passed on it, content to remain a small man, a servant, a protector. All he wanted was one heart.

But how could he rival an immortal?

No, he had to continue his patient wait, hoping the Destroyer would demonstrate his unworthiness sufficiently clearly to Stella.

Or he could find something to bring the Destroyer down. That way he’d be doing everyone a favour.

He wandered out into the rose garden, closing an exquisite stained-glass door quietly behind him. A faint light spread from the door, enough to show him he was not the only one out late at night.

There was Lenares, or perhaps he should call her Merla, sitting on a small bench, her back against a stone wall, her head in her hands. Another person broken by the Destroyer. They could all have walked away from the confrontation in Sayonae. A boy would still be alive, and this girl could have remained ignorant of her bitter past.

He sat down next to her. She shivered in the cold, and he put a burly arm around her. Her dress had been torn in places, as though she had blundered through thorny bushes, and blood stained one bare arm.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she whispered, but he didn’t let her go and she said nothing further.

Another life destroyed.

Gradually he became aware she was mumbling to herself. He knew he should leave her, that she wouldn’t want anyone to overhear, that she was likely not even aware of his presence, but he stayed. The honest truth was it did him good to comfort someone. It reminded him that he could still be of use.

‘Mahudia,’ she said. ‘Mahudia, she is nothing. Nothing. I have seen her numbers. Slavery. Sold into slavery. One mother sells, the other buys. One eaten by a lion, the other by guilt.’

The words plucked at Robal’s soul. ‘Merla, don’t.’

‘Don’t call me that!’ she said, lifting her head and fixing him with bleary eyes. ‘And don’t touch me.’

‘I’m sorry, Lenares.’

He let her go, and she promptly plunged back into his arms.

‘Why me and not my sister?’ she cried, then burst into tears.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, racking his brains for something to say. He was not much for giving words of comfort. ‘Perhaps it was necessary. Maybe you wouldn’t have developed your skill with numbers had you stayed here.’

He cupped her pale face in his hands. ‘Don’t you think you have had a lucky escape? What sort of life would you have had here?’

She looked up at him, blinking furiously. ‘What? I was poor all my life. Mahudia found me in an alley, eating scraps from the midden heaps. The cosmographers gave me a home, but we always lived with nothing. What sort of life would I have had here? I could have had anything I wanted, you silly man.’

‘Except love, seemingly,’ Robal replied. ‘Don’t forget that.’

Her face crumpled. ‘You are right. My father slept with all his daughters. I would not have wanted that. I have no memory…no memory of anything—of this place, of parents, brothers or sisters.’

‘But you are certain the story is true?’

‘Oh yes. I knew even before Heredrew told me. I listened carefully to Martje and checked her numbers. She has built this place on lies. Every brick of it was earned through deception. She sold horses doctored to hide their infirmities, shipped them off to far away places where they could not be traced back to her. She held her sons here with false claims about her health, when they would rather have left to seek their fortunes. Her daughters she kept home with threats. Only Cylene has escaped her. I know so much about my mother, and everything I know makes me hate her even more. I wish Heredrew had killed her. I wish it wasn’t true.’ She swallowed. ‘I wish I had never found out.’

He pulled her forehead to his lips and kissed her gently. ‘Not all truth is good,’ he whispered.

A noise behind them. He turned to find Stella staring at him. She said nothing, but she didn’t need to: he could read the message written there. He wanted to cry out, to explain himself, but for some reason he held back.

Why should I bother? Why so desperate to appear virtuous in her eyes?

‘What’s wrong?’ he said. ‘Isn’t a man allowed to offer comfort to a travelling companion? Or were you waiting for me to claim that this isn’t what it looks like?’

She smiled weakly. ‘Not what it looks like? It looks like you care for someone who needs caring for. Of course you can offer her comfort. But please be careful; she’s vulnerable.’

Robal laughed. ‘I’ve never met anyone less vulnerable in my life,’ he said. ‘Except, perhaps, the man you offer comfort to.’

Stella pursed her lips together. ‘Do you really expect me to stand here and answer such accusations? Or have I misjudged you? Robal, you are my guard. You’ve been close by me ever since we left Instruere. Even if I’d had a mind to, I could not have shared intimacy with the man.’

‘But you love him all the same,’ he told her, as if revealing a truth of which she was unaware. Which perhaps she was. Many people denied things they shouldn’t feel.

‘If you know my feelings as well as you claim, you know it’s much more complicated than that,’ she said. ‘I cared for him at the end of the Falthan War, nursed him back from the brink of madness. And he and I are two of a kind. That makes for bonding, Robal. It doesn’t necessarily lead to love.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘He’s the kind of man best loved from a safe distance; if any distance is safe enough, that is. My first wife was like that.’

Turning his head, he sneaked a sidelong glance at Lenares, the truthfinder. She wasn’t wearing the disgusted expression she adopted when in the presence of lies, so maybe Stella was telling the truth. Of course, the girl’s mind may have been somewhere else, but Robal doubted it. This one was sharp.

‘So tell me, guardsman,’ Stella said, sitting on the bench next to him. ‘What do you think is really going on?’