Midnight Falcon (7 page)

So Bane trained every day for months, building his stamina, pounding along mud-covered trails, running up high hills, pushing himself to the point of collapse. In the early weeks he would sometimes stagger to a halt and vomit beside the trail. Then he would run on, lungs afire, muscles burning. Gradually he became stronger, driven on always by the thought of meeting his father, seeing at last pride in his eyes.

The race had been hard fought. One boy from the Northern Pannone had stayed with him for four of the five miles, but Bane had powered away from him in the last mile, finishing fast and sprinting towards the feast fires at the foot of Old Oaks. The last two hundred paces had been run between lines of cheering tribesmen, and at the finish he saw the king, standing alongside his brothers Braefar and Bendegit Bran.

Connavar was a big man, wide in the shoulder. He was wearing his famous patchwork cloak, bearing the colours of the five tribes, and at his side was the legendary Seidh sword that men said could cut through stone and iron.

Heart pounding, lungs close to bursting, Bane had slowed at the finish, then stood, hands on hips, staring into the eyes of the king. It was like looking into his own eyes, and their gaze met and locked. There was no expression on Connavar's scarred features, and he did not smile. He stepped forward and said: 'Well done.' Then he turned away before the breathless Bane could answer, and strode back through the crowd.

For a moment there was silence in the crowd, then Bendegit Bran stepped forward, and put his arm round Bane's shoulder. 'The champion is from Three Streams,' he shouted. He patted Bane on the shoulder. 'That was a fine run.' The crowd cheered again and Bran led Bane away as the other runners started to pound down towards the line.

'Are you all right?' asked Bran.

Bane had looked into his uncle's handsome face and nodded. 'Just tired,' he said, looking beyond him at the distant figure of Connavar, walking up the hill path towards Old Oaks. 'Is the king not staying for the feast?'

Bran looked embarrassed. 'He is a solitary man. He rarely stays among crowds for long.'

'Last year I heard he sat the winner of the race beside him at table,' said Bane.

'Then you shall sit beside me this year,' said Bran.

'I think I'll go home,' Bane had replied.

'That's a two-day ride, Bane. Stay. Enjoy the feast.'

Bane had walked away, saddled the borrowed pony, and set off into the darkness.

Eighteen months later, when he fought his first skirmish against the Sea Raiders, killing two and wounding a third, he had been awarded the gold clasp he still wore on his wrist. It was a tradition that these were given out by the king. Bane had received his from Braefar. It was no surprise by then.

It was around this time that Arian began to fade. She ate like a sparrow, and the weight dropped from her. Even Bane could no longer make her smile.

Bane pulled his blanket around him and rolled to his side, resting his head on his saddle. He heard Banouin's soft footfalls as he entered the cave, but kept his eyes closed.

I will see you safely to Stone, he thought, and when the walls of the city are in sight I will say farewell.

The wagon trundled on through the driving rain, the two weary horses moving slowly, heads down against the wind. The driver sat huddled below the canvas canopy, his right hand holding the reins, his left arm round the shoulders of the teenage girl beside him.

Despite the canopy the rain had soaked them both, and the girl shivered. 'How long, Father?' she asked.

'According to the map we're about a mile from the bridge,' the old man told her. 'After that maybe five miles. We should be there before dusk.'

He smiled as he said it. The sky was so dark now it already felt like night. Appius lifted his whip and cracked it over the heads of the team. They surged into the traces and the wagon picked up speed. His daughter snuggled in close. He patted her back and, reaching over, tugged her hood forward to try to protect her from the rain. The hood was already drenched. She looked up at him and smiled. His heart leapt. So like her mother, he thought. So beautiful.

Appius looked back at what the map indicated was a road. The thought made him shake his head in frustration. Road? It was a wide, muddy track, pitted and irregular, and his wagon was trundling along in the deep grooves made by other lumbering vehicles. Only an idiot or a barbarian could call this a road. Back in Stone there were roads! Roads of well-laid stone over gravel and sand.

He sighed. Back in Stone there were also the Crimson Priests, the Blood Trials, the burnings. The wind died down, and the rain began to ease. No longer did it lash into their faces, but now pattered against the canopy above their heads. To the west the sun broke through the clouds. Appius pushed back his hood, exposing his close-cropped white hair.

Lia looked up at him and smiled. 'Everything looks so wonderful when the sun shines,' she said.

'What would look wonderful right now is a bathhouse, with steam rising from perfumed water,' he said. 'And then a massage, and a long sleep.'

'Barus said the town was quite civilized. There should be a bathhouse.'

'Just so long as there's no temple,' he said, his good humour fading.

'The priests have not crossed the water,' she said. 'But they will.' Lia leaned back and stretched, removing her hooded cloak and shaking the water from it. He glanced at her and felt immediately renewed and revived. Her dark hair was cut short, after the latest fashion in Stone, and it emphasized the extraordinary beauty of her features, her large, dark eyes, and the radiance of her smile. He wondered if he was merely seeing her with a father's eye, but then recalled the effect she had on his young officers. Most were struck dumb in her presence. Maybe here, he thought, at this arse end of the empire, she will put aside the stupidities her mother instilled in her. Then, after a reasonable period, they could return to Stone and take up their positions in respectable society. Lia could marry a man she loved and know true happiness. And he could sit in the sunshine and watch his grandchildren grow.

I should live so long, he thought miserably. His back ached, and he could feel his knee joints swelling with the wet and the cold. Fifty years a soldier, marching in all weathers, sleeping on cold ground. It is a marvel I can walk at all, he thought.

But never in his worst nightmares did he expect to end his days across the water, in the very land that had seen the destruction of a Stone army. He shivered at the memory. Of all the participants in that reckless exercise Appius alone had emerged with credit, organizing his Panther into a fighting retreat to the safety of the previous night's fortified camp. Even then he had lost half his men.

The man Connavar was a devil in human form. He had organized his troops brilliantly, and Valanus, expecting the usual Keltoi tactics of a massed charge, had fallen into a trap. Cut off from supplies, unable to build a camp, the weary, hungry army had been attacked first by heavy cavalry, then by mounted archers. Cogden Field. The name made his skin crawl. Twelve thousand soldiers of Stone had died there.

Back in Stone the shock had been colossal. Appius had been arrested and returned for trial, but he and three other officers had been acquitted of negligence, the full brunt of the city's fury falling upon dead Valanus, who had, it was said, led his fifteen thousand men against an enemy a million strong. It was such arrant nonsense that Appius could hardly credit it. Yet the people believed it. Their pride would not let them even consider that a Stone army could be defeated by a mere thirty thousand Rigante. No-one wanted to hear the truth – save Jasaray. And then only in secret.

He remembered the day the general – yet to be emperor – had summoned him to his home, forcing Appius to relive every moment of the battle, sketching out fighting lines, recalling tactics. First the Rigante had killed all the Cenii scouts used by Valanus, and the army had been forced to march blind. Then a detachment had cut behind them, savaging the supply column, killing the drivers and burning the wagons. At the last they had surrounded Valanus on Cogden Field, a combined force of Rigante, Norvii and Pannone tribesmen, all under the command of Connavar.

'I trained him,' said Jasaray, and Appius thought he detected a note of pride in the general's voice.

'You trained him too damned well,' Appius said. 'We'll have to take an army back – and swiftly.'

Jasaray shook his head. 'All in good time. The defeat has frightened the populace. They no longer trust the Council to make strong decisions. Neither do I. It is my belief that a single figure should rule Stone: a single mind controlling the destiny of our city.'

'Your mind, general?' Appius had asked.

'If they call upon me it would be unpatriotic to refuse. Where do you stand, my old friend?'

'As I always have, Scholar. By your side.'

'I expected no less,' admitted Jasaray.

The wagon lurched as a wheel hit a sunken stone. Appius backed up the horses, and moved round the obstacle. He could see the bridge up ahead now. It was a wooden structure no more than fifty feet across.

Aye, he had supported Jasaray, watched him become emperor. But when his own family were in trouble . . . ? 'Put not your faith in emperors,' he whispered.

'Did you say something, Father?'

'No, I was just thinking out loud.'

'Will Barus get into trouble for loaning us his house?' asked Lia, suddenly.

'No, there will be no trouble. We are not runaways, Lia. They did not serve the papers. We have committed no crime.'

'But we knew they were coming when we fled.'

'We did not flee,' he snapped. 'We sought the emperor's permission to remove ourselves from Stone. He granted it. That was the sum of his help. So we did not flee.'

'You are bitter. It does not become you. Anyway, we left in the dead of night, while friends of ours were being taken to prison. It felt like flight.'

'No friends of mine were arrested, Lia. I have never subscribed to their foolish ways. I never will.'

'I do not think they were foolish,' she said. 'And I do not believe the Source would think them so.'

'Aye, a god of real power, this Source. All who believe in him are put to death and he raises not a finger. But let us not argue it again. I had all this with Pirae.'

Both fell silent at the mention of her name. Appius was not present when the Crimson Priests arrested her. He was serving on the eastern border, helping to put down a bloody revolt. He arrived in Stone the night after her trial, and missed her execution. Pirae had refused to recant, and had faced down her accusers, calling them 'small men with small dreams'.

It seemed strange to him that a woman who had spent her life in the pursuit of every illicit pleasure should have come to her end with courage and dignity. He glanced at Lia. She was not his daughter. She had been sired by one of Pirae's many lovers. He doubted if even Pirae had known which one. Yet he loved Lia more than he had ever loved anything. She was sunlight upon his soul; cool clear water in the desert of his life.

Pirae had betrayed him at every turn. Sullen and spoiled, she had spent much of his fortune on ludicrously expensive clothes, silks and satins, jewel-encrusted gowns, baubles of every kind. She had never shown the slightest interest in any worthy cause. And then, at the age of forty, had stood against the might of the priests and defied them, knowing they would kill her.

'And all for a tree!' he said aloud.

'Why does the thought of the Tree upset you so much?' asked Lia.

'What?'

'You mentioned the Tree again.'

'I didn't realize I said it aloud.'

'The Tree is merely a representation of the power of the Source; spirit that flows upward, outward, inward and downward, mirroring the seasons. It has nothing to do with tree worship. That is a silly lie put about by the priests.'

'And why can you not understand?' he countered. 'The priests represent power in Stone. To go against them is wilful and dangerous. It has left us here, in this forsaken cesspit of a land.'

'I was happy to stay,' she reminded him.

'To stay and die,' he pointed out.

'Some things are worth dying for.'

'Aye, but not trees,' he said.

The team halted before the bridge. Appius stood and stared at the raging river as it gushed past the supports. The structure looked insubstantial and neglected. With a silent curse he sat down and cracked the whip. The horses moved out onto the wooden boards. Below, in the black churning water, the swollen body of a dead bull was swept along by the flood. It rammed against one of the supports, which buckled and fell away. The wagon lurched. Appius rose in his seat, cracking his whip once more. The frightened horses lunged into the traces.

Then the bridge collapsed.

Appius was thrown clear, his head striking a post. Then he was pitched unconscious into the water.

Banouin had been miserable for most of the day, and not just because of the hissing winds and the driving rain. He had not slept well, his dreams full of anxiety and humiliation. Happily he could not remember most of the dreams, but one had clung to his conscious mind. He was standing naked in the centre of Stone, and crowds of people were laughing at him. Deep down he knew the reason for the dream, and it made him feel like a traitor and an ingrate.

It was quite simply the thought of Bane's accompanying him to Stone that had brought about this mood of depression, and the anxiety dreams that accompanied it. Banouin's plan had been to purchase suitable clothing, cut his hair, and enrol in the university. In short to become a citizen of Stone, to blend into the life of that wondrous place. No more jeers and taunts, no more feelings of inadequacy. He had planned to become a scholar, living a quiet life of contemplation and study. Now he was riding towards the city of his dreams in the company of a man of ferocious violence, the epitome of the best and worst of Rigante manhood.

Yet this man had protected him for much of his young life, and had endured the hatred of his peers for doing so. The thoughts that plagued Banouin left him feeling melancholy and unworthy.