Knife Sworn (27 page)

Sarmin came to himself upon the floor of his room, on his side, one cheek buried in the dusty rug. After moment he scrambled to his feet, urgency guiding his movements. The Many must not take him this night. Negotiations would begin in the morning and he could not wake in another strange place, his feet having moved along the path of another, his lips having spoken another man’s words, his knife… He remembered his
Histories
, stabbed a dozen dozen times, and felt a coldness in his stomach.

At the door he called for Ta-Sann and his fellows to bind him to his bed. They used elaborate knots of twisting silk, making patterns that belonged to great boats and the men who sailed them. Once secure he began to drift, the memories of those who were lost rising before him in the same bright clarity as if he had lived them. And in those images he saw one, something so recent that its smells and sounds came to him unbidden. His own hand held a parchment fragment, dark with age and covered with with the script of the man who had once lived alone, in this same tower room, a man who had also loved patterns. And what was written on that fragment was his own name.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“My emperor, the vizier has urgent news.”

“Azeem?” It would have to be him, disturbing the first peaceful night in forever.

Sarmin sat and shielded his eyes. One of the sword-sons loomed above him, lamp in hand.

“Is he here, then?” The shadows offered no hint of the vizier. “Waiting with the counsel in the throne room, my emperor.” “The counsel?”
Some disaster must have happened.
The last traces of sleep fell away as Sarmin stood. “Mesema! My son?” It was as if Grada stabbed him once again, the metal scraping against his bone.

“I have only been told to wake you, my emperor.”

Sarmin reached up to catch the unyielding ridge of muscle along the man’s shoulder. “Tell me! I am your emperor!”

“I know nothing—forgive me.” The man bowed his head and Sarmin walked past him, the other five sword-sons closing around him, bracketing him three before, three behind as they descended the stair.The palace halls glowed with the light of hundreds of lamps as if to leave a shadow no hiding place. Not since the night that Sarmin wedded Mesema had so many lamps been lit. Squads of palace guard hastened by without falling into obeisance as Sarmin passed—only in war might such insolence be tolerated. Had Yrkmir’s armies crossed the desert? Had the emptiness reached the palace, reached Mesema and Pelar?

The throne room door stood open. A crowd of men had gathered within and was still growing while curious women were being swept out, a river of colour and silk. He caught a glimpse of Jenni’s face, then others just as pretty, all gone in a moment. Among those who stayed Sarmin picked out the faces of Prince Jomla, General Merkel and Herzu’s priest among his acolytes, before they fell into obeisance, like river-corn before the scythe.

“Tell me of my wife and child. Tell me now,” Sarmin shouted. Azeem rose from the sea of backs. “They are well, my emperor.” “And my brother?”
Daveed, he has fallen into nothing!

“Prince Daveed is well and with the empire mother, my emperor.” “What then! Why am I here and all these before me?” He swept his arm at the prostrate nobles. “Rise! Get up!”

Azeem walked to the dais, opening a path among the priests and nobles so that Sarmin could ascend to take his place above them. Sarmin lowered himself onto the cushions. “Speak!” He sounded like Beyon, infected with that same impatience now.

Azeem cleared his throat. “The envoy from Fryth has been killed.” “Killed.” Sarmin tried the word out for size.

“His throat was cut.” Azeem nodded as if it were a question. “And his guards?” Sarmin pictured the two huge warriors.

“The one set to watch over the envoy is dead. The other and the priest were in a separate chamber. Both live.”

“And
my
guards? The men I set to honour my guest?” There had only been honour in it, the thought that the men of Fryth were in danger within the palace had not crossed Sarmin’s mind.

“Nobody else was hurt. The attacker did not enter the room by the corridor.”

Azeem studied the ripples in the silk runner that led from doors to throne.
The Ways!
Was there a man of Nooria who didn’t know the Ways since the Many ran loose there?

“Captain Shalla believes the killer may have gained access from the roof through a ventilation dome.” General Lurish spoke up beside the vizier. Prince Jomla broke in with his high, sweet voice. “Your Majesty—” Sarmin cut across him and spoke to Azeem. “And what of Herran? What does he say?” He sought the master assassin among the crowd. If any should know how death was brought into the palace it should be that one, Eyul’s old master. “Master Herran left the palace several days ago, my emperor; we are uncertain when to expect his return.”

“Gone questing to find me a Knife, I imagine.” Sarmin tapped his fingers on the marble of his armrest. Master Herran had brought several candidates before him in recent months, trying to convince him to take one or other of them as the next emperor’s Knife, but Sarmin would have none.
As many

candidates as it takes,
Herran had said. “Are none of the Grey Service here to answer me?” Sarmin didn’t expect anyone to step out of the crowd but they would come to him in time.

Only silence for an answer, broken by the shuffling of expensive footwear. “Govnan! Have the mages from the Tower, every one of them.” As few as they were. “Read the stone, the water, air, and fire. Tell me what has happened here.” He saw it in his mind’s eye. Envoy Kavic amid the shallow lake of his blood, his throat opened in a long red slit. Where was their talk of peace and reparation now? What red words would that new mouth speak to Fryth and Yrkmir? He saw the sprawl of Kavic’s white hands, the twist of his legs on a patterned rug. How wide would the lake of blood grow before this was finished?

In his mind’s eye he saw Helmar’s pattern-mark, the one that Kavic had recognised. How many others might he have known? Mastery of the pattern would allow Sarmin to heal the wound in Beyon’s tomb, stop the emptiness from flowing into Nooria, but that would be much more difficult now with Kavic dead. Sarmin rubbed his wrists. His bonds had left the faintest chafing.
The

rope?
And in that moment a cold thought ran through him and left him hollow. “Ta-Sann.” Sarmin beckoned the sword-son closer. “Ta-Sann.” Repeated in a low voice. “Did you untie me before waking me?” “No, my emperor.”

“How then am I free? Was the rope cut?”

Ta-Sann blinked, but only once. “There was no rope, my emperor, only grey dust.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Grada falls back as the thing flaps a wild and stuttering path through the air, crashing into the ground, rising, crashing again. At last it pauses. A butterfly. She knows moths but this is the first butterfly she has seen, braving the sun, iridescent, beautiful… broken. She sees the wound, the ragged hole in its wings, and knows it to be her work. Acid bile floods her mouth and she spits and spits, but the taste won’t go.

“Grada?” A hand shook her.

“Where—” She bit back on the word. The room lay in darkness, the only light from a lantern set on a stone shelf in the opposite wall. “Time to go.” Rorrin said, moving into vision.

She swung at him and he caught her fist. The pain in her side stopped her struggling.

“Enough. It’s time to go.”

“Your man stabbed me!” she said. He released her and she put her fingers to the wound.

“And Anx made it better.” Rorrin nodded.

“I did my best. My mother always told me—”

“Your mother died before Uthman sowed Nooria’s seed, old man.” Meere from the shadows, cutting across Anx’s meanderings.

Grada levered herself up, cursing. “Torlos’ pointy cock!” Meere and Rorrin must have come in while she slept. Only Anx had been there on her return from the Mogyrk service.

Meere sat on his bed, ready for travel, old Anx beside him, bones and skin in a faded black robe sewn with Mirra’s hand. An acolyte then, at least once upon a time.

“Why did you stab me?” she asked.

“He said to test your mettle.” Meere nodded at Rorrin. “You caught me by surprise, things got out of hand.” He shrugged, lifting his hand towards his nose then letting it fall. “You can’t get the measure of a man without risking a little blood. It’s the nature of the business. And besides, you got lucky.”

Rorrin snorted at that. “It’s your job to make sure people don’t get lucky, Meere.”

Grada tried to stand, fell back, gritted her teeth, and stood. “Don’t,” she said, as Rorrin stepped to help her. “Why would you do something so stupid?” She put her hand to her wound.

Rorrin shook his head. “We should go to the palace and report.”

“I will see these slaves and where they are for myself before I go to Emperor Sarmin, heaven bless him and keep him,” Grada said. She looked down at the stain on her robe, the lamplight made the dry blood almost black. “His Magnificence will ask about this. Even without the robe he will know.”

“And I will tell him,” Rorrin said. “I will tell His Majesty that if he will not accept Meere as his Knife, if he will not trust my judgement in these matters and accept someone he doesn’t know to do his red work for him— then I must make a Knife of someone he does know and trust.”

“You overstep yourself, Rorrin.” Grada shook her head, confused. Sarmin might have the man killed if he came to court… unlikely, but whatever the emperor did in her defence would tarnish him. The vizier, Azeem, had the right of it, she had no place in the palace. Grada took her hand from her stained robe, stiff with her blood. “This could be the death of you.”

Rorrin watched her. A moth found its way into the lantern and beat its wings. Shadows danced across them as the creature span and thrashed. For a moment she saw the glimmer of a broken butterfly. She opened her mouth to speak, but he forestalled her. “It won’t be the death of Rorrin. He is invention, nothing more. The death of me? Perhaps. But I am sworn to the empire and this is the path.” He looked to the others.

Meere stood, his head still wrapped in linens. “I’m ready, Master Herran.”

“You’ll stay here with Anx. Grada, with me.”

And Herran, master of the Grey Service and of the emperor’s Knife both, led the way out.

As they moved through the plaza behind the palace, scattered with laundry tubs and wagons, Rorrin said, “the envoy has been killed.”

“The peace envoy?” Grada looked at him, but his face betrayed neither concern nor fear.

“We need a Knife,” he said, “tonight.”

They passed through the door and entered the back hallways. She could remember walking this way with a bucket of slops, back when Sarmin rode within her. For a moment she missed the emperor so intensely that she did not hear what Rorrin was saying.

“…someone small, through the roof vent. One of the girl’s hands might show rope burns.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding as if she understood, and put Sarmin from her mind.

Their path through the palace led up, winding through corridors that ran with servant and slave, all wrapped in their purpose, part of the great industry that let the upper echelons lead such idle lives within an illusion of tranquility. In time Rorrin led the way into areas reserved for Sarmin’s guests and family. Many halls stood empty, used perhaps once in a year, visited more frequently by slaves hunting dust than by the silk-clad in pursuit of diversion. They passed the Red Room, a place scored into the memories of the Many. In the Red Room where the fountain plays carriers first sought to test the Knife. Eyul had fought the Many there and found patterned skin cuts as easily as any other.

They had passed the doors to the Red Room when a woman’s cry echoed after them. A single wail mixing fear and resignation.

“We should keep moving,” said Rorrin, his voice cold, but Grada had already returned to the doorway and pushed it open. Against the far wall she saw the source of the cries: a woman huddled in the corner, arms shielding her face, while a man beat her with his hands and fists. He was silk-clad; she could see that much, though his robes and hair were disheveled, and as she approached he turned to look at her. She could not determine whether his lips formed a smile or a sneer, or had found some way to convey both.

“This slave talked back to me,” he said, gaze flickering from Grada to Rorrin. The woman lowered her arms enough to look. Her eyes had gone blank and dull and her hair was stiff with blood.

“You should stop now,” said Grada, and the calm she heard in her own voice surprised her. A man like him could take more from a person than the Pattern Master. She had seen it, when her father was alive, and in the dark alleys of the Maze, and in every other place too. The Many had carried their hurts into the design and she had lived enough of it.

“I am Lord Zell,” the man said, “and I do not take commands from you.” The tinkling of water into the fountain’s pool filled the silence. The room felt cool despite its hot colours, the fountain elegant and simple, a beautiful setting for such an ugly scene.

Another man stepped from the crimson folds of the hangings the covered each wall. A bodyguard, to protect Zell as he beat the slaves. She wondered what resistance Zell had met in the past that caused him to seek a guard. This one had not armed himself for the palace except for a dacarba, gleaming in his hand. Its sharp, three-sided blade was designed for assassins, but he was too heavy and thick for that profession.